


flying too close to the sun

by angelatflightrisk



Category: A Separate Peace - John Knowles
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Brinker is an ASSHOLE EXTRAORDINAIRE, Eventual Smut, Finny and Gene have functional conversations AU, First Dates, Fluff, Frottage, Gene gets his shit together AU, Gene thinks too much probably, Grinding, M/M, Nobody gets jounced out of a fucking tree AU, Oral Sex, Sad Ending, Secret Relationship, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Tragedy, gene is angry and protective, he'll fight anyone, lots of kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2018-09-30 00:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10148555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelatflightrisk/pseuds/angelatflightrisk
Summary: Maybe he’s Icarus. If Gene is Icarus now, Finny is his sun.





	1. Summer Session (part one)

**Author's Note:**

> it'll probably take me a hot minute to get this totally wrapped up, but i promise it'll happen!!

There isn’t much wind, but it’s there. Gentle, light, warm. The evening isn’t silent, the light wind showing itself in the rustling of the leaves all around Gene from where he stands on a limb, the limb of the tree. Their tree. Boys, their friends, call down from the base on occasion, far below. The Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session.

The wind catches in Gene’s dark hair, just enough to be annoying, to fly into his eyes and make him brush it away.

Phineas is in front of him, seemingly fearless as he looks down at the river, balancing gracefully on the limb. His curly blonde hair is catching in the wind, too, and if it’s falling into his eyes he doesn’t seem to notice or care.

If he was usually beautiful, at the moment he was ethereal. The setting sun was like fire painting the horizon, and it reminded Gene vaguely of watercolors, of splashes of red of yellow and orange dancing across the clouds. It framed the boy in front of him, his tanned, bare skin glowing in the light, his usually golden hair turned to fire against the sunset.

Amidst all this fire, bright green, a flash of life and playfulness as Finny turns around and his eyes meet Gene’s. He’s grinning that perpetual grin, that carefree smile, and he’s so trusting as he stands on the edge of the limb there. He’s helpless, Gene realizes. The idea startles him.  
Gene has a kind of power in this moment, a very real kind of power, and suddenly Gene realizes what he’s reminded of with Finny framed by fire like this.

If he was Lazarus on the beach, he’s Icarus now. He’s flown too close to the sun, maybe. Trusting Gene to not hurt him when he very well could-- likely not even giving it a thought. And why? Gene isn’t trustworthy. He isn’t. He’d made up a rivalry between the two of them, a stupid silly rivalry, an imaginary enmity, and he’d still believed in it not an hour ago.  
Finny is Icarus. Beautiful and flawless and playful and too trusting. Gene is the sun, then. Is Gene the sun, then?

“Let's jump together,” He says. The perpetual grin on his face. Gene’s jaw sets as he watches his friend.

And then they jump. If Finny is Icarus, naive and destined to be betrayed by something he believed honestly and deeply in, than Gene isn’t his sun. Gene won’t be his sun.

Finny’s eyes close as they hit the water, but Gene’s don’t. The fire goes out, replaced by soft blues. Finny’s curly hair flows with the water, his cheeks puffed slightly from holding his breath.

Gene will not be his sun. Naturally. He’s his best friend, and his job is to protect him. Starting now.

 

 

“--So if I was gonna say _I am playing_ \--”

“Yeah?”

“--The ending for je with er verbs is just e? So it’s _Je jouere_?”

“Wh-- Finny. No, you don’t just add it to the end--”

“--Then why is it called an _ending_?”

His nose scrunches up in a kind of childish frustration as he sets the pencil down, apparently finished. Gene can’t help but roll his eyes as the boy crosses over to his bed and takes his shirt off, begins the process of getting ready for bed without a second thought to his french. Dramatic.

“That’s it, then?”

“That’s it, pal,” Finny confirms, and Gene can’t pretend to be too annoyed when he’s thrown a grin that’s all sleepy green eyes and long lashes and blonde hair falling messily against his friend’s freckled face. It’s late, and the only light in the room is that of the moon out their window.

Finny’s all soft, pale, but somehow he’s still glowing. Still flawless. Still ethereal. Still, it’s gentler now. Softer. Less fire and more moonlight.

Gene must have been staring, because when Finny’s startlingly green eyes flicker up to his own they’re questioning, curious, maybe mildly confused. Gene’s jaw sets, and he looks away. Why was that strange? He decides it wasn’t, and moves to get ready to sleep.

Finny has other plans, apparently. His fingers catch Gene’s wrist as he’s passing, and it’s Gene’s turn to shoot the questioning look.

“What are you doing?” He mumbles, and his voice is low, soft. After all, the others are sleeping. A smile tugs at the corner of Finny’s mouth, his eyes never faltering from where they lie. Gene can see gears working, but for the life of him he couldn’t say what they’re working on.  
  
He almost doesn’t notice that Finny’s kissing him, it’s so soft. He only really realizes once he feels his friend’s fingers curl into the hair against the back of his neck, once Finny’s thick lashes flutter closed against Gene’s cheek, sending a chill up his spine. It’s shy, which is a word he never thought he’d ever use to describe anything Phineas ever did. In his life. It’s soft like everything else in this room right now. Gentle. As if he’s afraid he’ll scare Gene away, and in all honesty he might be on the right track.

He never closed his eyes, he realizes as Finny pulls away. Finny’s eyes catch Gene’s, one last time, studying him, maybe looking for something, before he simply pulls away and crawls into bed. Turns his back to Gene and goes to sleep, the rise and fall of his chest as soft and as gentle as his lips were against Gene’s. Gene, who is suddenly very cold in the wake, in the absence of his best friend pressed against him, in the absence of soft lips pressed gently to his. He’s more confused than he’s ever been, but eventually he goes to bed, curls into the blankets, closes his eyes and does not sleep.

 

 

Things change. Not as far as Finny is concerned, of course. Nothing ever changes for Finny. Everything stays exactly as he found it, as far as he’s concerned. Jumping from a tree with his fingers intertwined in Gene’s is still just jumping from a tree with his best friend. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing different.

Studying french in the grass with his fingertips brushing Gene’s knee as his friend explains things that don’t soak in is still just companionship. Nothing changes. Nothing happened.

Falling asleep with Gene’s eyes on him is still just falling asleep. Gene can’t stand it. It burns him up from the inside, in his chest.

The expected things are crossing his mind. That his best friend has kissed him, that his best friend is very male and he’s kissed him, that his best friend kissed him and is going about it as if he didn’t. Was he messing with him? A distraction, as the society had been in Gene’s pretend rivalry? Maybe he was just playing, just teasing, just trying to see how far he could push Gene until there was a snap. A joke, then.

Things change, for Gene.

The expected thing would be disgust, repulsion, rage. Shoving Phineas away contemptuously, demanding to know what a kiss like that was for. Boys didn’t kiss boys, and boys certainly didn’t kiss boys in Devon. That’s how he should have acted. How he should have felt.

He could lie to himself, chalk it up to shock. He could, but he soon finds that he can’t. He tried, but he can’t.

And now, the unexpected things are crossing his mind. Did Phineas mean it? Could he have meant it, could it have been genuine? If Finny was ever anything, it was genuine. Could he have kissed Gene just because he wanted to? Did Gene want him to? Does Gene want him to again? His breath catches in his throat whenever he sees Phineas, _Phineas_ , noticing things that he’d noticed before but had previously been simple observations and now are something far different, far less innocent.

Which raises the question-- what has Phineas done? Everything had been innocent before this. Friends wrestling in the grass, friends holding hands as they jumped from a tree, friends discussing french with a definite interest imbalance, friends. Friends.

Now, though, it couldn’t just be friends. It couldn’t, not when Finny pulls himself onto the bank, his skin shimmering in the setting sun, his hair golden against the sky, his slender form soaking as he laughs, as he stretches like a cat and throws Gene a grin that makes him dizzy. Why does it make him dizzy? It’s never had that effect before. What has Phineas done?

Maybe he’s Icarus. If Gene is Icarus now, Finny is his sun.

The difference now is that Icarus doesn’t trust his sun, is fearful, is careful. He’ll fly centered between the ocean and the sun, and he will not be burned. Gene isn’t naive. He won’t let himself get hurt.

If nothing changes for Finny… If Phineas can ignore this, so can Gene. Or, he thought he could. He thought he could.

Finny doesn’t look like Icarus tonight, as he’s standing against the horizon. The society was meeting late tonight, too late, and the firey sky has long since been replaced with the night’s siren song. The stars dance around Finny, as if they’re leaning into him, as if they’re drawn to him. Gene isn’t surprised. Everything’s drawn to Finny. Naturally.

His eyes have some stars of their own, Gene notices. Maybe the freckles splattering his face and his body are really constellations, gifts from God as certification. Proof that Finny is a bonafide miracle.

His bare skin is washed in the moonlight, his curly blonde hair catching in the gentle wind, and he’s an angel tonight. Gene suddenly feels like praying.

He holds out his hand, and he doesn’t speak as he smiles brightly at Gene. Gene takes the hand as it’s offered, and he doesn’t speak either as the pair jumps.

Gene’s eyes close when he hits the water, but he doesn’t let go of Phineas’s hand. In the muted underneath, below the surface in the dark of the river, he feels Phineas come closer. His friend keeps hold of his hand as he pulls himself to Gene, and his hair brushes Gene’s cheek as he’s close, as his hand comes up to rest on Gene’s face, feather-soft and gentle. Gene doesn’t open his eyes, refuses to look at him, to watch as he comes close. As his mouth connects with Gene’s, gently, like a dear secret or a prayer, like _anything_ but a game. Gene melts.

It’s over as quickly as it happened, with Finny away from him after only a few seconds of their mouths meeting, of sharing that secret. Because they’re human, and they need to breathe. His eyes open as he watches Finny glide gracefully to the surface, and he follows him.

The boys don’t suspect a thing, of course. Usual chatter fills the air as the two come up, as Gene rakes a hand back through his soaked hair and looks anywhere but Finny.

Finny, who’s green eyes are out of sight, but Gene can feel them on him. Only on him. Unwavering, unmistakable. Gears working. A shiver shoots down Gene’s spine, feeling small under his friend’s gaze, under his friend’s gaze that he does not meet.

 

 

It is as if the sun is determined to bring Icarus up, up to him so that he can melt his wings and watch him drown just for the fun of it, absolutely dead set on the idea no matter how much Icarus struggles.

Of course, this isn’t a fair assessment. Not really. Finny doesn’t want to hurt him, for once in his life isn’t doing something just for the chaos and the fun. As much as Gene would love to believe otherwise, all hope of that being an explanation fizzled out in the river when Finny was so gentle, so sweet, so soft and sincere as his mouth found Gene’s. His fingers curled into his hair. His eyes closed. A prayer, a secret, enchanting and intoxicating and anything but a game.

No. Finny isn't trying to hurt him. Finny doesn’t want to watch him crash and burn. Who could say what Finny wants, but it certainly isn’t that, Gene decides.

The boy in question, the blonde-haired freckled-faced sun sits across the room, the green of his pretty eyes hidden under thick lashes as he looks down, his chin in his hands. He’s looking as if he’s trying very hard to concentrate on something that simply won’t cooperate, the pencil sitting idle on his notebook.

Gene had been watching him silently for quite some time before a smile finally quirks at the corners of his mouth.

“Take a picture,” He says lightly, not even looking up from whatever he is studying.

“What is that, Finny?” Gene returns without hesitation, effectively veering the conversation.

“Trig,” He replies easily as he looks up, the careless, sleepy smile still sitting on his mouth, “Although there’s really no use in studying. Nothing’ll come of it, not like things come of it for you.”

“You don’t do it right,” Gene stands, crosses over to his best friend, sits next to him on the bed as he takes the pencil from his lap. Finny’s watching him the whole time, and Gene wonders if things changed for Phineas after all.

“I don’t, huh?” Finny’s voice is soft, thick with something that Gene can’t place. The shiver goes down his back. Finny’s close, too close, his breath falling against Gene’s shoulder, warm and soft.

“You just stare at it, Finny. Nothing will come of you just staring at it. You have to work with it.”

“It’s such a bore, Gene,” Comes his response, impatient. Gene finally looks at him. His green eyes are glazed with something, with something that Gene doesn’t understand.

“Finny,” He mumbles after a moment of quiet between them.

“It’s so boring. School’s so unnecessarily boring, so confusing for no reason but to--”

“Finny,” He repeats, and it sounds more like a plea this time. It’s enough to make Finny stop, to make his eyes turn back up to Gene’s, to search his expression.

“Finny, what’s going on?”

“Well,” He replies, evenly, “We’re talking homework, and you’re acting crazy.”

“Cut it out, Finny,” He meant for his voice to be harsher than it is, it comes out like another plea. Tired. Desperate. Finny stops, the smile slipping off of his face. Stares. Gene stares back at him, waits for an answer. Finny’s always had a way with words, but right now he appears to be at a loss.

It feels like ages of Gene just staring into those unwavering eyes before something in him snaps, something inside him can’t take it anymore. Icarus changes course abruptly, cold so close to the ocean and sick of starving for his sun.

Finny looks shocked as Gene takes his face in his hands, his friend’s skin ridiculously soft against his fingers. Finny. Christ, Finny.

Icarus flies headfirst into the sun, and Gene dives completely into Phineas.

His lips are as soft as the first time, as the second time. But it isn’t shy this time. Isn’t gentle, soft, prayerful and innocent and chaste. This time, Gene feels his heart beating out of his chest, a heat flooding his chest, his veins, and his mouth connects with Finny’s almost harshly. It is as if he’s trying to breathe him in, and maybe he is.

It takes Finny all of three seconds to catch up, and the second he does he presses forward, promptly fixing the angle, his head tilting naturally and suddenly the movement of their lips against each other feels perfect, natural, incredible. Finny’s a wonderful kisser, Gene realizes sharply, as Phineas’s arms wind around Gene’s neck to pull him closer. Finny’s teeth nip playfully at his friend’s bottom lip, pulling a gasp from him. Finny doesn’t laugh like Gene thought he would. Instead, a small noise falls from his lips, like a soft, desperate sigh.

“Gene,” He says, his voice thick with something. Gene opens his eyes a little, just a little, as Finny’s arms tighten around him a fraction, as he presses their lips together again. Gene realizes gradually that there’s tongue now, that now Finny’s pressed close to him, his fingers tangled in Gene’s hair, and that there’s tongue now. Finny’s tongue is warm against his own, languid in its movement and soft and deeply intimate. Passionate.

Heat swells in Gene’s chest, an explosion of butterflies, and his eyes fall closed again as he tries to match this. He’s never done anything like this, even remotely similar, and it feels so incredible he’s scared the pure heat will burn him up. He’s equally scared that his kissing capabilities aren’t amazing, that they aren’t even good, that Phineas will suddenly stop and decide he doesn’t want him after all. And Icarus would have fallen into the sea for nothing.

But Phineas doesn’t stop, and his tongue rolling over Gene’s continues, gradually pressing closer, closer. Gene isn’t sure when his friend ended up in his lap, his legs folded on each side of Gene, pressing closer, closer, kissing him in between breathing his name, and then--

“Finny,” pulling away from him is the most painful thing Gene has ever done, and he watches as the boy’s eyes flutter open. Not completely. Still half-closed, dark with the intensity of what they were doing, glazed over with desire and passion, his form washed in the moonlight from the window. He’s beautiful, his blonde hair in a mess, looking helpless and downright sinful. It’s beautiful. Christ, it’s beautiful. Gene is positive that he’s never seen him more beautiful.

“Finny, we can’t,” He forces himself to say, and the record for the most painful thing Gene’s ever said or done is broken quickly.

“What?” Finny asks, softly, “We can’t what?”

He doesn’t know what. He doesn’t know. Whatever it is, they can’t.

“We shouldn’t,” Gene says, and his forehead falls to rest against Phineas’s. Gently. He’s praying, softly. Silently. He’s praying to God to keep them both from falling into the ocean.

“We shouldn’t what?”

“We could get in trouble, Finny. Please, for once. Just think about the consequences.”

“I don’t want to,” He returns, honest as he always is. His fingers trace Gene’s jaw, his eyes fluttering lightly. He has a sort of sleepy passion to him, a kind of intimacy in his touch that makes Gene melt despite the sense he’s attempting to talk.

“You should.”

“I don’t care what I should do. Who gets to decide what I should do?”

His mouth finds Gene’s, like a prayer, like a secret. Like a promise. Gene sighs and Finny pulls back, his arms slipping from around his friend’s neck. And then he’s gone, obliging Gene as he crosses the room to slip into bed and close his eyes.

Gene should be relieved. He isn’t. He can’t stop his bones from aching for Phineas as he lays down, as he watches the boy’s chest rise and fall from across the room. Not for the first time, Gene does not sleep.

 

 

What has Phineas done? More importantly, what has Gene done?

In the week following this night of unspeakable intimacy, of unfiltered and unmasked passion, of chanting names and clashing mouths, of Finny’s gasps and heat, Finny’s skin burning against Gene’s fingertips, neither of the pair speaks of it.

Neither speaks of it, but it’s definitely different now. Things have changed, the damage has been done.

Finny’s touches linger, now. Where before his fingertips on Gene’s knee while they studied was innocent, now it held a deeper meaning. All of their interactions implied a longing that they weren’t sure what to do with. Finny’s eyes while they were about to jump from the tree and he stared at Gene had a different kind of shine to them. A star that wasn’t there before.

They still can’t. They still shouldn’t. Gene made a promise to protect Phineas, to protect his naive Icarus, to keep him safe if he couldn’t do it himself. He will not let anything bad happen to him, refuses to allow any harm to come to him.

And diving into a scandalous, homosexual affair with him would bring him harm, would bring them both harm. If Finny wouldn’t consider consequences, then Gene would. If they did this, they’d inevitably be caught, and it would be anything but good. Shock therapy, probably.

That doesn’t make Gene want him any less. Finny is talking with Leper, animated as he does, apparently telling some phenomenal story. Leper is on the edge of his seat, watching Phineas’s hands illustrate his doubtlessly captivating words, his story which Gene can’t hear from where he sits a ways away.

Finny. Wearing one of Gene’s shirts, as he did. His hair is golden in the sun, with none of the fire of the sunset and all the peaceful grace of the summer afternoon. His eyes are the most animated part of him, in this moment. He’s beautiful as always, as flawless as he is mesmerizing, his very presence hypnotizing.

After a few minutes of Gene watching quietly from where he sits, Leper turns away to answer someone calling to him, and those green eyes flicker across the way to Gene.

Phineas had known he was watching him. Naturally. Finny always did have a knack for catching that little detail whenever it came around. Gene doesn’t look away, simply holding his gaze. His jaw sets. Finny smiles a small smile, a knowing smile, and he licks his lips before going back to his conversation with Leper.

Gene’s hands are shaking as he tears his eyes away and down to his french, his fingertips aching to card into that mess of blonde hair, swearing to god he can taste Phineas.

What have they done?

 

 

“I wanted to kiss you last night.”

Finny’s voice sounds as if he’s reporting the weather, as if he’s idly noticing a penny on the sidewalk. The statement itself has Gene’s eyes up in an instant. Phineas is sitting on his own bed, criss-cross, a book in his lap. He turns a page.

The morning light pours in gently from the window, soft and blue and purple. It isn’t time to be awake yet, but of course Phineas is anyway. And since Finny’s awake, Gene is too, even if he didn’t get out of bed.

“You were asleep,” He continues, and Gene sits up as he watches his face, tries in vain to stop his face heating up. Finny’s eyes flicker to meet Gene’s for the briefest of moments before returning to his book. He turns the page again, and Gene knows he isn’t even skimming it.

“You were asleep, and I wasn’t. I know you watch me sometimes when I fall asleep. I did that. I wanted to kiss you. You look so sweet when you sleep, all peaceful with none of your worrywart crap. I wanted to kiss you awake.”

“Finny, you-- you can’t say something like that.”

“I just did,” Finny retorts, lightly but still somehow assertive, his eyes finally coming up and meeting Gene’s. He’s frustrating. He’s so frustrating.

“You shouldn’t, then.”

“What is it with you and what I shouldn’t do,” Is Finny’s response. It isn’t snappy, not like it ought to be with those words. It’s honest. Maybe a little bit sad. Gene can’t hold his gaze.

“There’s consequences to things.”

“Sure. There’s also consequences to having feelings that you never do anything about. It festers. Makes you lose your mind. Gene, I don’t want to know that I wanted to kiss a boy who wanted to kiss me too, and that we didn’t because he thought we _shouldn’t_.”

Gene doesn’t have a reply. His gaze flickers to the window, and locks there once he hears Finny moving, standing, crossing the room. His friend pauses, before kneeling in front of Gene, his arms resting on Gene’s knees. Gene looks down to him. He’s staring back, studying him. The gears are working.

“Gene,” He says softly, “Do you want me?”

Leave it to Finny to be so blunt, so horrifyingly blunt, to put Gene on the spot in such a way. Gene’s breath catches in his throat as he stares. Finny’s unwavering, holding his gaze in a calm and collected way, looking beautiful and like anything Gene could ever want. A miracle.

“Yes,” Gene eventually answers, “But that doesn’t mean we should.”

“Of course it does. You’re crazy. Of course it does.”

Finny’s moving, coming up to be at eye level with him, close enough that his breath mingles with Gene’s but not close enough that their lips connect, not close enough that Gene can feel his soft, plush lips against his own. Not close enough.

“If you want me and I want you, that absolutely means that we should. Why shouldn’t it? Consequences be damned, because there won’t be any. Ask me why.”

“Why?” Gene’s breathless.

“Because I refuse to let anything bad happen to you. That’s why. Because I said so. I promise that nothing bad will happen to you.”

The irony there makes Gene want to cry. Phineas protecting him. Phineas is the one who needed protection, isn’t he? But the boy was serious, dead serious, and that wasn’t something Gene saw often.

“Gene,” He breathes, like his name is holy, like he’s praying, and his eyes close lightly, hiding his pretty green eyes behind beautiful dark lashes. His fingers tangle into Gene’s hair, and it makes his breath catch, “Gene. Gene, can I kiss you?”

But he doesn’t get to. Gene does it first.

 

 

They’re on their way to the tree when it happens. They’re trailing pretty far behind the group, having some kind of normal conversation involving Finny’s distaste for a book they happen to be reading in class. The group turns a corner and Finny stops dead. Gene barely has time to shoot him a questioning look before he’s shoved against a wall, Finny’s fists in his shirt collar, and Finny’s mouth is on his. He’s shocked, because they’re out in the open, and Brinker had only just turned the corner. Someone could see them. Someone could--

Finny pulls back, turns on his heel and falls back into step. Gene wastes no time doing the same, if not a bit disheveled. He almost starts to doubt that it even happened, before Finny speaks again.

“Sorry,” He says, and Gene can almost believe him, “I had to. You look beautiful, you know. All the time. Gets to a guy.”

Gene realizes that he’s staring, disbelieving. Finny’s lips quirk up in a little smile when he says, “Don’t act so shocked.”

“I just needed to,” He continues, eyes flickering to Gene’s, “Just a taste. To hold me over until I can get you alone tonight.”

Gene’s knocked dizzy, wondering what on earth Finny and he have gotten themselves into. And more importantly, what on earth Finny plans on doing to him when he gets him alone tonight.

 

 

It starts innocently enough, if you can call Finny kissing Gene breathless the second he steps through the door innocent. Still, it’s chaste, sweet. That prayerful soft thing they used to share when they were still scared of each other. Finny pushes the door closed, then locks it, and then his nimble fingers set to work tangling into Gene’s hair.

Butterflies swell in Gene’s chest as Finny kisses him, a soft sigh falling from his lips as his eyes fall closed. It’s Finny, it’s Finny, it’s Finny. Everything is Phineas as he returns the kiss, as his arms move of his own accord to pull his friend closer.

The kiss doesn’t stay chaste for long, and a familiar shiver shoots up Gene’s spine as tongue falls into the mix. Warm, slow, intimate. Licking kisses, like last time, Finny doing wonders in the languid roll of his tongue. Gene’s helpless, to do anything but follow along as best he can. Finny’s head tilts for a better angle, his fingers dragging against Gene’s scalp.

He tries something new. His tongue rolls over Gene’s, again, perfectly melting him. His mouth goes for something new, a new movement, as Finny shifts gears to first nibble on Gene’s bottom lip. Then, he coaxes Gene’s tongue closer, and then he sucks gently on it. He’s sucking, his eyes closed and his fingers in Gene’s hair, and it feels otherworldly, incredible, fantastic, and if Gene was melted before he’s ashes now. He can’t help the sound that falls from his mouth, and it only encourages Finny’s vices.

Finny’s vaguely out of breath when he pulls back, his eyes glazed with passion, and that’s Gene’s favorite expression on him, he decides. His blond hair is more of a mess than usual, his face flushed, his lips red and barely swollen from the kiss and its nature.

“That was certainly something,” He whispers.

“It was definitely something,” Gene’s response is breathless, helpless, melted. Finny smiles, his fingers tightening just a fraction in Gene’s dark hair.

“I liked it,” Finny confesses as he presses a kiss to Gene’s collarbone. His knee is coming up, shifting, and Gene doesn’t know what he’s planning but he knows it won’t be good, “You sound like you liked it, too. Did you like it?”

“Yes,” Gene responds, a little embarrassed now. Finny presses a mouthy kiss to his neck, and he shivers. His knee has wiggled its way in between Gene’s legs, up, and--

Oh, Christ.

“Finny,” He says, and he isn’t sure if it’s to beg for more or to protest. Finny’s knee presses up, grinds, working him in unspeakable ways.

Gene doesn’t masturbate often. You don’t catch a chance, much, not at Devon. Especially with roomates. Nobody wants to have to go through the trouble of waiting until they were asleep, then turning away from them, and making sure to be absolutely silent. Not to mention cleaning the stains so the maids wouldn’t catch them and scold you. At least, that’s how it is for Gene.

So he’s very easy to please as it is. His body responds almost embarrassingly easily to Finny’s teasing, a tent already forming in his pants under Finny’s affections.

“Does that feel good?” His roommate mumbles, pausing his languid, messy litter of kisses across Gene’s neck only to ask, and he immediately resumes. Gene’s head is spinning. He can’t seem to catch his breath. Everything is Phineas. He can smell him, he’s so close, and he swears he can still taste him. His kisses are burning hot on his neck, and his knee. Christ. Christ. It’s absolutely sinful, and it feels amazing.

“Finny--”

“Do you want me to stop?”

It’s a genuine question. Finny’s looking at him with a kind of careful intensity that Gene’s never seen in him before. His knee shifts up, grinds, and Gene’s head falls against Finny’s shoulder. He’s dangerously short of breath, a string of humiliating sounds falling from his lips as his face heats up.

“Finny.”

Finny is everything he wants, is the only thing he ever wants. That’s the problem. That’s his weakness. It scares him how much he wants this, when he said he was going to keep them both safe and _out of it_ . Finny’s knee shifts up and he loses his breath, straining against his pants, aching against Phineas’s _amazing_ ministrations, wanting nothing more than to fall against Phineas and completely melt into him, to breathe him in and make him feel the same pleasure he’s being given.

It feels so incredible, and the skin of Phineas’s neck is warm and soft against his mouth, everything about him flawless. Perfect. Breathtaking. It feels amazing, and Finny is amazing, and Gene wants nothing more than to eat him alive.

“Yes,” He says quickly, his voice attaining a note of panic, “Yes, Finny, I-- I want to stop. _Stop_.”

Phineas is off of him in half of a second. He looks concerned, breathless, searching Gene’s face for an explanation that Gene doesn’t have as he stares at the floor. He stays there for a while, for longer than Gene would have liked, before the touch lingering on his jaw disappears. He’s gone.

 

 

“Did-- Did I go too far?”

It’s a week later, neither of them have talked about it. The stream of kisses has slowed with the miscommunication, replaced with a tense atmosphere. Gene looks up at Phineas, Phineas, who is all soft purple and pink sunset against the horizon. His eyes don’t meet Gene’s. They’re sitting together, by the river, just them. Just them.

At least they’re talking about it. Gene doesn’t have an answer for him, and eventually his best friend turns his head to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry. Do you want an apology?” His voice sounds desperate, more desperate and frightened than Gene is used to hearing from anyone, let alone his fearless Phineas. His green eyes, nearly wild with the sincerity of his statement, and of his question, they’re making Gene dizzy. Just to look at him.

“Finny--”

“If you don’t want to do this you should tell me,” He continues, just as desperate as before, his voice coming to a beautiful, terrifying, heartbreaking crescendo as his palms cup Gene’s face and his forehead falls against Gene’s.

Gene doesn’t have an answer, in his hopeless bewilderment. Finny’s never been like this. Not Phineas. He’s never seen him so vulnerable. He’s never seen Finny cry.

Finny’s crying, he realizes sharply, like fuzzy glass breaking and giving way so that you can see the full picture. Hot tears fall against Gene’s collarbones as Finny’s arms wrap around his neck. He’s quiet as his face tucks into Gene’s neck. Gene doesn’t have an answer for him. Why doesn’t Gene have an answer for him?

“Gene,” He says softly, and Gene’s reminded starkly of his friend with Gene’s name on his lips, in a very different context. Gene wants him. More than anything. More than life. More than air. He doesn’t want anything but Finny. So why doesn’t he say anything?

He’s scared.

“Gene…”

Finny pulls back, those striking green eyes meeting his. Christ, he’s so beautiful. Gene wants to touch him, but he doesn’t. Why doesn’t he?

“Gene…”

He’s terrified. He’s scared senseless. He needs to protect them. He needs to protect Phineas. Phineas, his Icarus. Maybe the damage isn’t done, not yet. Maybe they can fix it. Maybe it can reverse itself. Maybe that helpless look in Finny’s eyes can fade away, the careless wayward tune of the summer can return to his features.

Phineas’s arms slip away from him, and every nerve in Gene’s body screams for him to come back. Come back. Don’t go.

“I love you,” Phineas says, without a hint of a smile, and it isn’t how those words should be said. Especially not from Phineas. It shouldn’t sound like a defeat, like a resignation to your own weighted melancholy. It shouldn’t go unrequited. Anyone Phineas says those words to should say them right back, because he’s an angel, isn’t he? A miracle incarnate.

Why shouldn’t someone say them back? Why shouldn’t Gene?

Gene loves him too. He doesn’t say it. Phineas’s eyes slip away from his, turning down to look at nothing, to hide his shame. A tear slips its way down his flushed, freckled cheek, and it breaks Gene’s heart as Finny brushes it away himself. That should be Gene’s job. And he certainly shouldn’t be the cause.

But this is wrong, isn’t it? It can get them in trouble. It will get them in trouble. They shouldn’t have started this in the first place. Gene should be relieved that Finny’s breaking this off.

Phineas stands. Don’t go.

“I’m sorry,” escapes his lips in nothing but a whisper, a final resignation, mortification showing itself in the heartbreaking glitter of his gorgeous eyes. Don’t go.

Gene almost reaches for him, almost asks him to say, almost springs to his feet to litter his face with kisses, allows the affection he’s bottling up to flow from him and into Phineas, professes a million apologies, promises him everything he deserves. Tells him he loves him. Takes his hand, leads him off to bed where they can try again, with as much time as they want.

But he can’t, because Finny turns on his heel and runs. He’s a wonderful runner, graceful in everything he does. Startlingly fast. He runs, and Gene’s left alone by the river.

“Don’t go,” falls from his lips, just a whisper, and it’s too late.

 

 

Gene isn’t relieved. He’s miserable. He can’t stand the way Phineas won’t look at him, the way those pretty eyes dull when they catch on his. He hates it with every inch of his being, sinking down into his bones.

Gene’s a coward. That is all it is. He isn’t trying to protect anyone, and he can’t use that excuse anymore. He’s just a coward. He wants to hold Phineas in his arms until the smile comes back, until he gains back the privilege of kissing him in the quiet of their room again, until he can hear Phineas tell him that he loves him with none of the hurt in his eyes.

This is his fault. He loves Phineas, and he isn’t doing anything about it because he’s terrified. For good reason, maybe, but who cares? Gene shouldn’t care. If he really loved Phineas, he wouldn’t care. If he really loved Phineas, he’d do whatever it took to be with him. Regardless of his fear. Regardless of consequences. He’d just be with him.

Because he really, really wants to be with him.

Across the table, Finny’s eyes flicker away from Gene’s own, down to a book Gene knows he isn’t even skimming. His chest aches. He needs to fix this.

 

 

“Finny,” He says softly. His blood is ice in his veins. It’s the first time he’s spoken to his friend since the afternoon at the river, a full week of this. When the striking green meets his eyes it appears startled, skittish, just for a moment, before Phineas manages to school his features. They’re alone. Gene knew better than to do this anywhere but in their room, the door locked, everyone asleep.

A lazy, fake smile finds its way onto Finny’s lips. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Yeah, pal?” Finny hums, his eyes finding their way almost casually back down to his untouched homework, “What, need help with your french?”

“Finny, listen to me,” Gene says, and it isn’t soft. It’s firm, decided, adamant. Finny’s eyes flick back up, and they stay there. There’s a sort of bewilderment in his expression. Confusion. Gene swallows.

“Finny,” He says, his voice even as he speaks. Calm. He looks down, finally, his hands gripping the side of his bed. He takes a shaky breath, “Finny, I… I need you.”

The silence that hangs in the air after that is suffocating, so Gene fills it, “I need you. I mean it. And that’s scary. So, yeah, I-- I wanted you to stop. I wanted us to stop. But I don’t want to stop. I can’t. I need you. I--”

He tears his eyes up, forces them to meet Finny’s, “I think we belong together. I think that no matter what happens, me and you need to be together. I think that’s the only thing that matters. I need you, Finny. I--”

His breath catches before he can say it. The train comes to a screeching halt just before the most important part. Finny looks breathless, helpless, those beautiful eyes looking startled and confused and loving, all at once, all framed in pitch lashes and soft, blond, curly hair falling into his freckled face. He’s amazing. Phineas. Phineas. For the millionth time, he’s sitting staring at Phineas, writing hymns about all the ways he’s intoxicatingly perfect, all the ways he’s a miracle. And that’s how he knows that he means what he says next.

He stands up. Slowly, carefully, as if Phineas is a wild animal that might startle, he comes closer. Phineas never moves, never looks away, those eyes so wide. Gene kneels, like he’s getting ready to pray, and maybe he is. He’s kneeling in front of Phineas, his hands braced on his knees, inches from Finny’s face.

“Finny,” He says softly. He can feel his breath catch against his cheek, “I love you.”

That’s all Finny needed. In an instant, his friend, his best friend, his _lover_ launches himself at Gene, his mouth connecting with Gene’s like they were made for each other. As Phineas’s tongue starts exploring, as Gene opens up under Phineas’s loving touch and Finny under Gene’s, he thinks that maybe they were.

Whatever the case, they belong together. And even if Gene is scared, even if he’s terrified, he refuses to give this up. Naturally. Gene needs him more than air, as his fingers wind into his hair, as Finny chants his name in between kisses. He loves him. He loves him.

 

 

Things change after that, in a very important way. Ever since they started this mess they’d had to hide, and they’d likely always have to. The difference now, this big and very important difference, was in who they were hiding from.

Up until then, they’d been hiding from everyone. Hiding from themselves. Hiding from each other. It was them against each other, against the world, against _themselves_.

But once Gene made his promise and their lips came together in that deeply felt covenant, the world itself shifted. The balance. How things are. Suddenly, it is Phineas and Gene. Phineas and Gene hiding, but not from each other. Never from each other, not anymore. From everyone but each other.

Phineas and Gene, together, against the world.


	2. Summer Session (part two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His boyfriend. His lover. God, that feels good, even to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HALFWAY DONE *passes out*

There’s barely any light in the pale summer midnight of the room. Only the dim glow of the moon and stars dancing lightly through the window, wholly unhelpful if one hadn’t been in the dark for quite some time. Which they had, their eyes adjusted, just barely able to see each other.

It’s dark. Like a secret, like a prayer. Like a sin. Like the night’s silent seduction coaxing them along as their lips move against each other, perfectly, naturally. Skin pressed against skin, both wearing nothing but their underwear. It’s silent aside from the gentle rustling of the sheets as they move, the soft sounds of their mouths meeting. The occasional hushed sigh. Quiet. Making certain they don’t wake Leper, who’s only on the other side of the thin wall. Or anyone else for that matter.

A quiet sound as they part, as Gene pulls back, his fingers still tracing Finny’s cheekbone. Gently.

He’s beautiful like this. He’s beautiful like everything. But Finny underneath Gene, his legs wound around the latter’s waist, his arms helplessly splayed on either side of his own head as he tries to catch his breath is a special kind of beautiful. His fingers curl, lightly, like he’s trying to ground himself. Gene just watches, trying to catch his breath himself.

Finny’s eyes are a dull green in the dark, everything about him muted, silhouetted. Gene can make out the vague shine of his blonde hair in the moonlight, the hushed glitter that constantly dances in his pretty green eyes, the sinful shine of his bruised and bitten lips, shimmering in the pale light from Gene’s mouth, how he’d been kissing him moments ago.

Finny’s mouth tugs up in a smile as his fingertips inch up. Gene only moves as much as he needs to, to accommodate the change, obliging Finny by bracing his forearms on either side of Finny’s head. His lips and Finny’s were only inches apart as his friend’s-- his  _ lover’s--  _ hand comes up to trace his face. His thumb runs across his cheekbone, and then his fingers card back through his dark hair. Gene lets his eyes flutter a little. He feels small under Finny’s gaze, inadequate in front of such a wonder of a boy. He doesn’t say this.

“Finny,” He mumbles. He doesn’t miss the way the grin tugging at his lover’s lips seems sleepy, soft, almost thoughtful as his eyes flutter slide over Gene’s face, down his chest.

“Hey, Forrester,” Finny says in a hushed voice, playfully, his fingers curling into Gene’s hair to coax him back down, “Kiss me?”

Gene indulges him, of course. Not that he doesn’t want to kiss Phineas, because Christ, he does. That’s all he ever wants to do. His lips find Finny’s with none of the urgency that their kisses held in the beginning of the summer session. They’re not fighting with their feelings or how they should play out. They aren’t scared.

Their kiss tonight is tender, unwavering, heartfelt. Unrushed as Finny slowly tilts his head, opens his mouth against Gene’s, Gene who lets a small sigh fall from his lips as he mirrors the motion. They have all the time in the world to express whatever they’d like. And they’d like to express a lot. Gene’s heart swells in his chest as Phineas’s hand slips under his shirt, shivers as his boyfriend traces his skin.

His boyfriend. His lover. God, that feels good, even to think. His breath catches as Finny’s fingers ghost over his nipple. Phineas smiles into their kiss. This is one of his games, maybe. A playful dominance struggle. Just because Gene’s physically on top of him doesn’t mean he’s in charge, not really. Finny just lets him think that. Gene knows. But Gene can always gain the upper hand if he really feels like it.

Finny’s eyes blow open as he gasps, the abrupt sound followed by a soft, breathy, desperate whine. It’s Gene’s turn to smile as his face falls against Finny’s neck, wasting no time in littering him with kisses.

Finny keeps squirming, his hips unable to keep too still as Gene palms him, gently, through his boxers. One hand comes to Finny’s thigh, then trails down to carefully coax his legs open, careful not to scare him. When Phineas shivers, his fingers tightening in Gene’s hair, Gene takes the moment to press his own growing erection against Phineas’s through their underwear.

“ _ Ah-- _ ” Phineas gasps, his back arching, tugging on Gene’s hair just enough to sting slightly, just enough to make Gene nip his collarbone in retaliation,  “ _ \--Ah _ , oh my god.  _ Gene _ . Oh my  _ god _ .”

Gene’s got him, now. He can’t help feeling smug as he sucks another kiss into Phineas’s collarbone, as he begins an unorganized, languid roll of his hips into Phineas as Phineas gasps, hardening steadily, making Gene’s heart swell with affection and knocking him a little dizzy.

Gene has to admit-- this is intense. The last time they did anything sexual was that night when their falling out started, when he’d pushed Finny away and tried to live without him before finding that he can’t.

No. This won’t be like that. It’s nice. Perfect, natural as his hips roll rhythmically, slowly into Finny’s, listening to him gasp and try to keep quiet, feeling him twitch, just a little. It sends a shiver up Gene’s spine. Finny coaxes Gene away from his kissing on Finny’s neck in favor of kissing him on the lips, tasting sweet, both of his hands coming up to cup Gene’s face. His hips roll up to meet Gene’s grinding and Gene falters, his breath hitching, which gives Finny all the time he needs to flip the roles.

In just a few seconds, Phineas is between Gene’s legs, his chest pressed flush to Gene’s as he straddles his hips. His lips meet Gene’s, who is still processing, and he gives a wickedly playful grin, his green eyes half-lidded by his beautiful lashes, the dull glow of the moon painting him in as a muted miracle.

“My turn,” He whispers, before his hips begin their shockingly perfect rhythm of rolling into Gene’s. Gene is almost positive that Finny’s as inexperienced as him, so it makes no sense that he’s doing so wonderfully with the quick and flawless roll of his hips, his gasps in Gene’s ear as he grinds incredibly against him, his bare skin hot against Gene’s. Gene can’t help his own gasps, his own whispered chanting of Finny’s name, as if it’s holy. It is. Finny. God, Finny.

It feels incredible.  _ Finny  _ feels incredible. The mood shifts in an instant, suddenly hot, heavy, much like horny seventeen year old boys that love each other put in the same bed are expected to act. Finny’s making a little too much noise, expressing his bliss a little too loudly as his head falls against Gene’s shoulder and he outright moans. Panic rises in Gene’s chest, that someone will hear him, and he catches Finny’s mouth in a feverish kiss in a desperate attempt to quiet him. It works, and Finny obliges, his hips never faltering. Gene’s seeing stars.

Gene is helplessly meeting his movements, feeling familiar heat pool in the pit of his stomach as Finny continues his relentless affections, his kisses incorporating licks, nipping his lip, tasting Gene’s tongue and desperately trying to keep quiet. Finny’s hips stall once, then twice, and then he gasps sharply as his hips buck forward.

Gene’s face heats up as he realizes what must have happened, and when Finny’s hips roll one more time he quickly follows suit, the release feeling like heaven against Finny’s hip. He sighs, lets his head fall back on the pillow. Phineas peels himself away, his green eyes skirting over Gene, apparently admiring him. Gene can’t help but squirm under his gaze, and Phineas’s eyes meet his, playful as always, but shimmering with something else.

“...That was certainly something,” He says softly, his fingers running over Gene’s chest, his stomach, ghosting over his waistband. He hums, pressing a kiss to the corner of Gene’s mouth, and Gene’s still seeing those stars as he tilts his head to meet Finny’s mouth in a real kiss. It’s soft. Sweet. Gene can feel the sleepiness settling into his bones, and Phineas smiles.

“Sleepy?” He asks.

“That was really nice,” He replies, brushing Finny’s messy hair from his eyes, “But a little loud.”

“It’s not my fault you felt so perfect,” Finny replies easily. Gene can’t help his face heating up, the warm butterflies spreading through his chest. Finny presses another kiss to his cheek like a statement, not moving.

“The, um--” Gene mumbles, hating to get Phineas off of him but needing to acknowledge the situation, “--It’ll dry if we aren’t careful. Gross.”

“Gross,” Phineas agrees, wasting no time with slipping out of his boxers. Gene’s breath catches, trying not to look, not to stare. He fails. Phineas’s green eyes land on Gene, in all his flustered glory, and he grins, absolutely shameless.

He’s slow in coming over, in pressing a kiss to Gene’s temple.

“Don’t get excited,” He says, laughing around his words. Gene can’t breathe.

“Next time,” Finny whispers.

 

 

“You and Finny are awfully close.”

It might not be an innocent comment from anyone else, but from Leper it’s likely to be. Still. It makes Gene’s blood freeze, makes him scared. Terrified. He can feel his wings melting as he meets Leper’s gaze.

“Naturally,” He replies as easily as he can, his pencil still in his hand, “He’s my roommate. He’s my best friend.”

“Yeah, but,” Leper looks as though he’s trying to work through a particularly difficult puzzle, something with an explanation that simply doesn’t add up. Gene casts him a weird look, his best effort at making him look like a fool, and the look disintegrates from Leper’s face. Gene wants to scream, he’s so relieved.

“Sorry,” Leper mumbles, like a kicked puppy as he looks down, “I guess I’m just being strange, huh?”

“Don’t worry about it, Leper,” Gene returns, making his voice to sound forgiving but still vaguely annoyed, so that Leper will be absolutely certain that he was pondering something ridiculous and will refrain from bringing it back up.

 

 

Sweat, musk, grass stains and river-soaked hair. The scent of seventeen year old boys after playing blitzball by the river all afternoon. Gene, stealing glances at Phineas, watching his secret lover’s lips quirk up as he notices the staring. Phineas, glowing in the afternoon sun as he excels, bearing a striking resemblance to Achilles.

Perfect, in every way. Fast and strong and lithe, his hair curly and catching in the wind, falling into his face, his bright green eyes wild with sport as he plays perfectly, flawlessly, his face broken into a beautifully reckless grin. He’s graceful, focused, but Gene’s only focused on him. Thankfully, nobody notices. Not even Leper, who is very busy trying to play.

The boys go to the showers, as they do every night. But Phineas stalls himself and Gene, insistent on wrestling with him first. Phineas laughing that crisp, clean laugh that makes Gene’s heart swell, watching his green eyes blow big as Gene finally manages to pin him. Finny’s always playing silly games, there’s no reason to question his motives. That is, until he notices a troublesome glint in the boy’s eyes as he sits up, smiling. It’s been an hour since the other boys went to the showers, and all of them have long finished.

“Let’s go get showers,” Finny’s voice comes out as smooth and as sweet and as pseudo  _ innocent  _ as honey. Gene’s arms erupt in goosebumps. Phineas isn’t joking as he stands, offering his hand to help Gene up off of the grass. Gene obliges, swearing that his very blood is tingling as he allows Phineas to lead him away to what Gene has a burning suspicion may be their sun.

 

 

It’s Gene’s shirt that’s slipping off of Finny’s small-set shoulders, over his head and then tossed onto the tile. Gene can’t take his eyes away as Phineas turns to lean against the lockers, his blonde hair covering his eyes from where Gene stands. His nimble fingers make quick work of his belt, his button, his zipper, and then his pants slip off of his lithe, perfect legs. He’s left in his underwear, a pair of boxers hanging low on his hips and shamelessly displaying his pretty hip bones, the dip of his stomach leading down to where Gene can only imagine the unfathomable perfection, residing there in the hidden heat between his lover’s legs.

A flash of green as Finny meets his eyes, a flash of white as he lets a grin take over his expression.

“You’re not staring?” Finny teases. Gene promptly looks away, quickly removes his own clothes. He wonders if his staring at Finny felt as obvious to his lover as Phineas’s staring does to him right now. Gene can feel his face heating up as his shirt meets Finny’s on the tile, a shiver going down his spine at the hum of appreciation it elicits from Phineas. 

“Yes, that,” Finny says quietly, in that playful voice, “That.”

Gene’s face is burning as he slips out of his pants, as they join the pile. Finny’s breath hitches, just a little. Still. Satisfactory.

“Take them off,” Finny says, and Gene meets his gaze like he’s crazy. He just grins, but his own face has a little tint of red to it as he says, “C’mon, we’re showering, aren’t we? Take them off.”

“You do it first,” It’s stupid, but it’s the first thing that came to Gene’s mind, the first thing he thought of to try and quell his embarrassment. Finny only hums, wasting no time in obliging him.

Christ.

He isn’t terribly big, but that doesn’t matter to Gene. Nothing about Finny is terribly big, not like you’d expect an athlete to be. Gene’s noticed that Finny’s actually a little bit shorter than he is, a lot more lithe. His abs are defined, vaguely, as are many of his muscle groups, but in a lean sort of way. A kind of small way. He’s almost  _ girlishly  _ pretty.

Gene immediately notices that Finny’s shaved, there. His legs, too, but Gene knew that from kissing his neck while the two were both in their boxers in Gene’s bed. Or maybe he wasn’t shaved-- maybe he just didn’t have much body hair. Gene could believe that.

Whatever the case, Finny doesn’t have hair in the area where his stomach dips down. It just leads down, directly, to that intimate area, soft and vaguely flushed. Cut, Gene notices. Pink at the tip, on the head. A little dimple where his slit is.

“Jesus, Gene,” Finny mumbles, and Gene forces his gaze to Finny’s face. He’s blushing, tucking a piece of blond behind his ear. Embarrassed? Phineas embarrassed? That’s a sight.

“Am I not allowed to look?” Gene teases.

“Well, I’d like it if you didn’t just stare until the winter. Say something, at least.”

“It’s nice,” Gene admits, and he can see Finny’s eyes glaze over, gradually, with that sinful look he gets at night when they’re doing those unspeakable things. Gene licks his lips, continues, “I like how it’s flushed like that.”

“Oh, you like that, huh?” Finny breathes, the coyness that he likely intended not making its way to the final draft. Gene nods.

“Mhm,” He says simply, then, out of that burning curiosity, “Do you shave?”

“Yeah,” Finny nods, dismissively, almost, “I like how it feels, better. It’s less scratchy. Your turn-- take them off.”

Gene finally obliges him, and the intensity with with Finny’s eyes train between his legs is absolutely unbearable.

Finny’s closer to him, suddenly, his head against his shoulder as he looks down, both arms coming to wrap gingerly around Gene’s neck. Gene’s breath hitches against Finny’s hair.

“That’s big,” Finny notes.

“I guess.”

“I like it. I like that it’s big. Big is fun.”

“Is it?”

“Aye-huh,” Finny grins, meeting Gene’s gaze. Gene can’t help the smile that sneaks into his expression.

“What’s so fun about it?”

Finny’s grinning, his face tucked into Gene’s neck, his breath coming in steady rhythm. Gene closes his eyes, a sort of tingle spreading through his chest, through his veins, a kind of tense interest that came from his boyfriend being in such close proximity, both of them naked.

“Maybe I’ll show you later,” Finny responds, before he’s suddenly gone, slipped into the showers. Gene’s cold in his wake, and he shivers before following after. They shower, and neither of them fall into the ocean. Not today.

 

 

“Mr. Forrester!”

Gene’s quick to sit up straight. His face is ablaze with flushed embarrassment as the room of his classmates snicker at him in all his half-asleep glory. He blinks once, twice, trying to wake himself back up, aware of the way that his arms are asleep from him laying on them, aware of the vague numb spot on his forehead that he knows is a red mark from resting his head on the desk. The class continues to laugh while he rubs the sleep from his eyes, too disoriented to deliver a response.

He wouldn’t have had time anyway. The teacher continues the lesson, complete with a snippy line about Gene and his sleeping habits that makes the class laugh. Gene didn’t catch it.

Gene’s still flushed with embarrassment and disorientation, trying to right his mind, to remember where he is. Class, of course, but which one? His eyes skirt over the board, flicker to the clock, catch on the teacher. French.

Goddamnit.

Gene is subtle about it. He waits a while, acting as if this lesson on grammar is very interesting. He then takes out his notebook when they’re instructed to take notes, and only in the process of this does he let his eyes flicker across the room to meet Finny.

The boy was looking directly at him, seemingly this whole time, and that deepens Gene’s flush a little. He’s smiling a playful smile, a knowing smile. Maybe a smug smile, because he knows he’s the reason Gene didn’t get any sleep.

Namely, his mouth. His tongue. Finny’s hands in Gene’s hair, on Gene’s neck, on his shoulders, his chest, his stomach, his hips, while they kissed. All night. They’d done similar things well into the night, before, but never  _ all  _ night. All night, without sleeping. Just kissing, the occasional roll of their hips against each other, hushed conversations in whispers between the kisses. Sweet kisses, sleepy kisses that almost turned into real sleep before Finny set them on fire all over again, and Gene melted. Until it was morning, and they had to get up, get dressed, go to class.

So, Gene was sleeping in class. Naturally. Finny’s smiling that wickedly playful smile, those green eyes bright with almost-laughter, halfway to a sort of bedroom eyes. Gene shoots him a look, before he promptly returns to his work.

God, Phineas is going to be the death of him.

  
  


 

“Sleepy?”

Gene shoots him the second look in less than two hours, not unlike one a parent might give a child that was edging on naughty. Not unlike the one he gave him earlier.

“Whose fault is that?”

“Takes two, Gene,” Finny tells him, easily, and he’s right. Still.

“How are you not tired?” Gene eventually asks, absolutely incredulous. Finny really is a wonder. He didn’t sleep all night, not _ all night _ , and he’s absolutely fine. Even ethereal. Maybe Gene’s biased, but he looks beautiful as ever framed against the midday horizon as they walk along the path, moving to go to lunch. His skin is as glowing as ever, his eyes as bright, his hair as pretty, as bouncy, as blond. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It isn’t fair.

Leave it to Phineas.

“I’m a little tired,” Finny admits, looking at him with an idle smile sitting on his lips, “I mean, we had quite the night.”

“Keep your voice down.”

Phineas laughs, albeit a little more quietly. Gene looks away, training his eyes on the building as they approach it. Finny leans in to whisper against his neck.

“I’ll let you sleep tonight. Promise. Just a kiss or two and then we can go to sleep. Okay?”

Gene is quiet for a moment, before he throws his hip against Finny’s, checking him, catching him off guard and sending him to land on his elbows in the grass.

Phineas looks disoriented, but bright eyed, obviously loving this. His hair fell into messy curls in his eyes on impact with the dirt, that perpetual grin slipping into his expression as he looks up at Gene, his eyes shining, his shirt pulled up slightly, just enough so Gene can see a sliver of his hips.

Gene wastes no time pinning Finny by his wrists to the ground, straddling his hips so he can’t get up-- in theory, at least. He’s smaller than Gene, sure, but he’s the athlete. He’s stronger. And he doesn’t have Gene’s rightful exhaustion in his bones, for whatever reason.

“Gotcha,” Gene mumbles, and Finny’s grin only widens.

“Got me,” He agrees, making no effort to move away, even if he certainly could. He stays there, staring up at Gene with something in his green eyes that Gene can’t quite place, “You got me.”

 

 

Gene should be scared, really. He should be terrified, paralyzed with fear at how wonderful this all feels. Loving Finny is just how things are now. It’s routine, it’s simple, it’s perfect. Stolen kisses and lingering touches, holding him and letting him fall asleep in his bed, checking the door lock once, twice, a million times. It’s just how it is. 

It’s fallen into normalcy. Phineas kissing him in the quiet of their room feels natural, normal, with none of the rush of panic from before. None of the bewilderment, none of the wondering if this is wrong. No panicking because he’s a boy and his lover is a boy, that he is involved in an affair with another boy at Devon. Devon, of all places to fall for a boy.

But he isn’t scared. And maybe that’s the scariest part. Loving Phineas is as easy as taking a breath, and Gene knows it shouldn’t be. But it is.

They’re both Icarus, and they’re both the sun. And even if Gene tries not to think about the two of them like that anymore, that’s still their reality. Gene wonders if both of them turning to ash against the ocean really is inevitable, if it really is destined.

“Gene, look.”

Gene looks. Finny’s eyes are trained up, to the sky. Gene doesn’t follow his gaze, for a long moment opting to instead look at Phineas. Phineas, his hair glowing gently in the soft moonlight of the night in its infancy, his skin pale as it’s washed in the night. Those pretty green eyes, framed miraculously by his thick lashes. Freckles on his skin, on his bare shoulders, still wet from the river, beads of water slipping down his arm.

The stars gravitating towards him, naturally. He looks angelic as always, as Gene watches him, as the night’s soft song of crickets and rustling wind plays gently.

“Gene, look.”

Finally, Gene looks up, follows Phineas’s gaze. In the sky, there’s a million bright, shining, shimmering stars.

“Pretty, right?” Finny breathes beside him.

“Sure,” Gene replies easily, a little bewildered by Finny and his sudden awe-struck tone, by nothing but the stars, “But nothing you’ve never seen before.”

“Well, I’m nothing you haven’t seen before,” Phineas replies without taking his eyes from the sky, “But you still look at me like I’m God himself whenever you look at me.”

Gene doesn’t have an answer to that. He stares at the stars.

 

 

They aren’t being suspicious. They aren’t, and Gene’s sure of it. Finny’s hand is on his knee, sure, but it’s Finny. And they’re looking over what is very obviously homework. Two friends, best friends, roommates, studying. Nothing more. Nothing strange.

“Je suis  _ not like french _ ,” Finny says in a defeated tone, an obvious attempt at getting Gene to laugh. It works, even if much of it is just Gene trying to make absolutely certain that Leper, who is staring at them from a little ways away, has no doubts as to the fact that Gene and Finny are simply _ very close  _ friends.

Gene writes in another answer as Phineas goes off on a small tangent, and relief floods his veins as he feels Leper’s gaze move off of them. Phineas doesn’t appear to have noticed.

Naturally.

 

 

It’s Finny.

Phineas, his lips moving perfectly against Gene’s, Gene returning in practiced harmony, like a melody that only they know. A melody that only plays quietly, for them, in the absolute pitch black once Devon goes to sleep. Only then.

It’s beautiful.

It isn’t terribly rare that the boys kissing turns into something more, into Gene’s hips moving into Finny’s or vice versa while they try to keep their breathing from turning into solely sharp gasps, as they try to keep quiet, to focus on not waking anyone up, to share scorching kisses to keep from being too loud.

This is one of those not terribly rare occasions. Finny’s legs are wrapped tightly around Gene’s waist, and for once he isn’t taking control while Gene sets the rhythm, rocks against him while he kisses Finny’s neck and listens carefully to his flustered, pleasured breath. Monitoring, ready to swipe in and kiss him if he needs to.

“Gene,” Finny whispers, and Gene’s hands move to Finny’s hips as he moves to fix the angle, before he continues his ministrations. Finny’s breath catches, his fingers tightening in Gene’s hair, Gene’s hair which is already messy from their activities.

“Gene, oh my god,” He breathes, and Gene feels his eyes flutter closed against his temple, “Oh my god. Oh my  _ god _ .”

“Love you,” Gene mumbles against his collarbone, in nothing more than a hushed, breathy sigh, trying to keep quiet himself as that familiar yet incredible pleasure builds up in his stomach, Finny’s legs wrapped so tight around his waist making him a little dizzy. He feels Finny’s shoulders tense a little, feels him smile against his hair, maybe even feels his hips rock up.

“I love it when you say that,” Finny whispers, rocking his hips up in time with Gene’s rhythm, “I love it. I love you.”

Finny’s hands slip down to his hips, pushing him back in a wordless gesture for him to stop. Gene stills. He’s confused, concerned, and the question’s on his lips before Finny kisses him and the words die in his throat.

“It’s okay,” Finny says against his lips, softly, gently, in just a whisper. Gene’s not any less confused as Phineas flips the script, gently coaxing Gene onto his back, before he straddles his hips, pressed flush to his chest as he starts kissing his neck.

Gene almost doesn’t notice what’s happening, Finny’s so sneaky about it. First his hand is on his shoulder, chaste as can be. Then it trails down his chest, just a little. To his tummy, fingers teasing along his hipbones.

“It’s okay,” he repeats. And then both of Finny’s hands move to slip his boxers off of him.

“Finny--” Gene whispers, alarmed, confused, caught off guard. Phineas kisses him quiet while he finishes his task, removing Gene’s underwear and leaving him completely exposed and thoroughly embarrassed.

They’ve seen each other naked before. They’ve done sexual things before. But those things have never gone hand in hand, and to be naked and aroused in front of Phineas, in bed, while his lover presses kisses along his jawline is very new, very intimidating territory.

“It’s about time we lose the damn underwear,” Finny laughs softly against his lips, and it does nothing to help Gene’s blush, “Isn’t it?”

Gene is about to protest to being the only one completely naked, before Finny is slipping out of his underwear unprompted. He’s completely hard from their previous activities, and he’s shameless as his hand inches down to squeeze the leaking head lightly. Gene finds himself unable to look away, his face firey with his blush. Finny lazily meets his gaze, that carefree grin looking sinful paired with the way his green eyes are glazed over, the way he’s playing with himself as he looks directly at Gene. Gene, who can’t decide if he wants to look at his eyes or his actions more.

“Don’t look so panicked,” Finny says softly, leaning back over him to press a soft kiss to his cheek, “It’s okay.”

Gene doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t. He reaches up, gingerly carding his fingers through Finny’s hair, then coaxing him to turn his head so he can kiss him. Finny obliges him, his eyes fluttering closed as he returns the kiss, his hand stilling in its motions in favor of kissing his lover.

“I’m gonna try something,” Finny whispers. He doesn’t wait for a response, not really, his hand moving down and gently wrapping around Gene’s length and his own at the same time. Gene sees stars as Finny starts moving his hand, up and down, as if he were simply masturbating.

Gene’s mindblown. It feels so much better than what they’ve been doing. Gene adores what they’ve been doing. But compared to this, it’s absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Finny’s hand feels perfect in it’s movement, in its shockingly natural, perfect, effortless movement.

“Jesus Christ,” Finny breathes, and Gene wholly agrees. The way Finny’s hand feels like fire against him, the way Finny’s mouth is leaving those hot, opened mouth kisses along the juncture of Gene’s neck and shoulder. The way Phineas is rocking his hips lightly into his own hand, pressed tight against Gene so he can feel Finny slip back and forth alongside him.

“Oh my  _ God _ ,” Gene whispers. It’s incredibly hard to keep quiet. He feels like screaming Phineas’s name, he feels like singing him praises. He feels like praying.

“ _ Ah-- _ ” Falls from Gene’s lips, potentially a little too loudly, when Finny’s thumb presses playfully into Gene’s tip. Gene doesn’t have to look down to know he spills a little, just a little. Phineas moans softly against his shoulder.

“This feels awesome, doesn’t it?” Finny asks him, hushed, in an upward stroke that makes Gene see stars, “I love how close we get to be like this. I love that. I love actually getting to touch you. It feels so intimate.”

Gene pulls him into a deep kiss by his cheeks. Not because he was talking too loud, because he wasn’t, not really. He was clearly making an honest effort to keep his voice in a whisper, despite all the little hitches that came from such perfect pleasure.

No, the problem lies in Gene. Gene, who feels about three seconds from screaming. It feels better than anything he could ever imagine, and he’s positive that nothing could feel as good as this. Let alone better.

Finny falls into the kiss, only faltering his motions for a moment before he’s back to stroking perfectly, miraculously, incredible beyond words. Gene squeezes his eyes shut against the intensity of it all, and it takes all his energy not to cry out, especially since Phineas seems so at ease with the whole thing.

Gene’s hips jump into Phineas’s hand, only once. Phineas doesn’t stop, giving Gene’s tongue a little lick that may have been encouragement. It doesn’t matter, because it’s completely involuntary when it happens again, and a third time. Heat is pooling in Gene’s stomach, and Phineas feels like fire pressed against him, touching him, stroking him.

Finny’s thumb presses underneath the tip and Gene’s hips jump for a third time. Gene rips himself from the kiss in favor of throwing his head back and biting down hard on his own wrist to stop himself screaming, his hips arched off the bed and into Finny’s hand. He comes so hard he can swear his vision goes white.

It’s different that coming in his underwear. In his hazy ecstasy, he can vaguely feel Finny’s eyes on him, watching intensely as he finishes, as he makes a mess of his stomach. He feels Phineas’s hips falter slightly before he’s completely still, with a little hitch in his breath as Gene feels him come.

Eventually Gene comes down, his hips resting on the bed again, his breathing coming in soft pants. He sits up, lifting his gaze straight ahead to Phineas. Phineas, who’s staring in awe at Gene’s stomach, which is a complete mess with both of their orgasms. Gene swears he can see stars in Finny’s eyes as he stares, so shameless.

“That was amazing,” Finny breathes, “You were incredible. You looked so good when you came. I was watching you and I just couldn’t stop thinking how much I loved you. I love you.”

Gene presses a sleepy kiss to Finny’s cheek, visibly tired, barely having it in him to be embarrassed while Phineas’s fingers trace through the patchwork of come on Gene’s stomach. He does, however, have it in him to let warmth rise in his chest at Finny’s words, to feel affection flood under his skin as he presses another kiss to the corner of Phineas’s eye.

“I love you,” Gene whispers.

He feels Phineas smile against his cheek.

 

 

The sunlight is filtering in through the window, hitting Gene directly in the eye and coaxing him from his sleep as he squints. It’s morning. It’s the weekend, so he has no classes to go to, and he is expected to have slept in. No danger of being in trouble for sleeping as long as he’d like.

He notices after he’s a little more than half awake that he isn’t alone. His blond hair is a mess from sleeping, gently curly as always, shining like gold in the morning sun. His skin is glowing too, catching the light, that slight tan to him accented by the summer’s morning sun.

His breaths fall lightly against Gene’s chest, his eyes shut behind pretty lashes, sleeping soundly. He’s so pretty. He’s beautiful. He’s ethereal. It takes Gene a moment to remember why his lover is curled up to him, why they slept in the same bed, before the activities from the night before make their way to the front of his mind.

Gene blushes just thinking about it. Phineas looks smaller than he is like this, pressed close to Gene’s chest. Gene’s reminded vaguely of a kitten sleeping in the sun, everything about him soft and gentle while he rests.

Finally Gene’s fingers card through Finny’s hair, his lips find Phineas’s jaw to kiss gently, coaxing him awake. It takes a little bit, but it works, and eventually those pretty eyes flutter open against Gene’s jaw.

“Gene?” Finny’s yawning around his words. It’s cute. Gene feels a kind of adoration rise in his chest as he pulls back to look into his sleepy eyes.

“Morning,” Gene tells him, before pressing a kiss to his lips, “Love you.”

 

 

“Phineas!”

It’s a similar exclamation to the one he made a few weeks ago, directed at Gene, ripping him from his sleep. Finny’s head comes off his desk almost comically fast, that blond hair in a mess, those green eyes glazed over with sleep, his nose scrunched up slightly as if he’s confused and trying not to be. Which he likely is.

“We sleep at night, Phineas. In our beds. Is there a reason you find yourself needing a nap in my classroom?” He demands. The class snickers, waiting to see how Phineas is going to talk his way out of this one. Gene turns just in time to watch that charismatic grin take over his features, while one of his fists come up to rub his eye.

“Well,” He starts, his eyes flickering to Gene, just for a second. Gene, who is most certainly the reason he was sleepy in class. Gene’s hands on him, Gene’s lips on him, Gene whispering sweet praises in his ear as they did as they do. His eyes flicker back to the teacher, “I was up pretty late last night. Because, you know, I have to study. I figure, I’m a lousy student, but the least I can do is try, right?”

The room is silent as he looks around, gauging reactions, before he continues.

“Y’see, sir,” He gestures to the window, the way it lets sunlight in at just the right angle to make Phineas look like an angel on earth. Gene’s aware. He’s spent whole class periods trying to find ways to subtly admire it.

“The sun comes right towards my desk. Right towards it. And I was trying to pay attention, but it was awfully hard with me  _ already  _ being sort of sleepy, and the sun just making me all warm. If you ask me, God wanted me to take a quick nap. Why else would the sun come in just like that?”

Every gaze turns towards the teacher, who appears dumbfounded, at a loss for words. Before he simply laughs. He’s laughing, and Phineas is grinning triumphantly, and Gene feels a kind of exasperated fondness as the boy looks back at him again. The class goes back to being class.

 

 

“The break is coming up.”

It’s Finny who says it. He’s busy tapping his pencil on his homework, Gene looking over his shoulder and trying to help him. Gene glances at him when he speaks, and figures they’re finished with the homework, any chance of focusing out the window with a conversation like this.

“In a week, yeah,” Gene confirms as he takes the book from Finny’s lap, to move it out of the way so Finny can say whatever he wants to say without distraction. He must want to say something, Gene figures, if he’s starting a conversation in that tone of voice. That thoughtful, maybe distant tone, that tone that’s making Gene a little worried.

Finny does focus on him. Turns those mesmerizing green eyes to Gene, looking him over. Gears working. Gene feels like he’s being taken apart.

“The break isn’t that long, Finny,” Gene assures him, gently, really taking a shot in the dark as to what Finny could be concerned with, “Two weeks. You’ll blink and it’ll be over, and we’ll be back.”

“I know,” Finny confirms, his voice a little low, a little thoughtful, a strand of blond falling against the bridge of his freckled nose while he tilts his head. It’s instinctual when Gene reaches out, brushes it away with his knuckles, gently, his fingers lingering against Phineas’s cheek. A flash of green when those eyes meet his again.

“I know,” He repeats, “But I’m gonna miss you. Two weeks-- that’s forever.”

“It’s not forever. Don’t be ridiculous,” Gene chides, but there’s no heat behind his words. Finny’s lips quirk up, ever so slightly.

“I’m gonna miss kissing you,” He says softly. Suddenly Gene’s glad they’re in their room, even if it’s only just gotten dark, if not everyone’s asleep.

Finny leans over, kisses him. No tongue, no heat, no playful hips testing the waters as they move against each other. Just a kiss. That soft prayerful thing they used to share. It’s sweet. It’s light. It’s lingering, but Finny does pull away, if only to continue his speech.

“And I’m gonna miss your eyes.”

“My eyes?” Gene looks at him like he’s crazy, because he is. Phineas just shoots him that wicked smile, tilts his head.

“Aye-huh. I love your eyes. They’re this… I don’t know how to explain it. Give me a second.”

“Finny, you’re crazy.”

“They’re like chocolate. Like really dark chocolate. Really dark but… I don’t know, they’re sweet. They’re beautiful. You always look so thoughtful, whenever I look at you you always look like you’re considering every question there ever was. And I love it when we’re… you know. Intimate. Because your eyes get this gorgeous intensity to them, this really deep, dark feeling. I love it.”

Gene can’t do anything but stare as he talks, absolutely bewildered. Finny continues.

“Your skin is nice. Kinda really soft, kinda pale… I like how you sunburn so easy. It’s cute. I like it when you’re red on your cheeks and your nose, from being out in the sun a little more than your skin really liked.”

Finny’s thumb swipes over Gene’s cheekbone. Gene, who’s completely breathless.

“I like how you’re a little taller than me. Just a little, of course. But enough that I can feel small when I sleep with you. Your hair, Gene. It’s so dark. I love it. I love feeling it. You look like a god, you know that? Gorgeous, I swear.”

Gene, gorgeous? Gene, a god? It’s nonsense, it’s ridiculous, especially coming from Phineas. Phineas, the miracle embodied. Phineas, the angel. Phineas, beautiful Icarus drenched in gold and forever smiling and never not ethereal. Gene, beautiful? In Phineas’s eyes? It’s laughable.

“Finny,” Gene says softly, once he finds his voice again, “You’re crazy.”

“Why?”

Gene doesn’t have an answer for him. Finny’s lips quirk up before he presses a kiss to Gene’s cheek, before his lips trail down to suck at the sensitive space where Gene’s neck meets his shoulder. Gene can’t help the breathy sigh that escapes his lips, the way his eyes flutter shut, the way his cheeks heat up and his fingers card in Phineas’s hair.

He’s dreading the break. Two weeks is going to feel like an eternity. Finny’s fingers move to Gene’s belt, apparently sharing this sentiment.

 

 

He’s framed by the summer sun, all fire. Maybe more firey now that summer’s practically turned to autumn. Or maybe it’s turned to autumn entirely and Gene failed to notice. Phineas is fearless as always, taking the time to look over the river from where he stands on the branch. Icarus.

Gene watches as he turns around, as he flashes that beautiful grin. It’s the last night before break. The end of the summer session. Finny offers his hand, and Gene takes it without a second thought. They jump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/


	3. Winter Session (part one)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every bone in Gene’s body is aching for Phineas, and here in his place is Brinker Hadley. It’s cruel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO MUFFINS!!! i'm so sorry for the pause!!! This chapter is significantly longer than the others, though, so I hope that makes up for it!! unless you hate long chapters. in which case, oopsie daisy, im sorry  
> warnings ahead for homophobia and i think there's a slur somewhere.

There’s snow by the time Gene Forrester returns to Devon. The break was longer than it was originally anticipated. War does that, sometimes. Skews things, changes things, makes things haphazard and unorderly and unpleasant. A break which would have been two weeks was instead three, then four, then turned up as six. Six weeks.

Gene is freezing when he steps off of the train. The first thing he notes is the snow, everywhere. Devon looks sleepy when she’s blanketed in white, in soft white and framed by the grey, maybe the tinted baby blue of the sky. Less of a  _ winter wonderland _ , not quite so cliche as that. Looking unnaturally vast, empty, perhaps vaguely forlorn. Sleepy. Gene doesn’t like the winter.

Gene’s never liked the winter. He hates how it nips at his skin, bites at his bones, pulls at his hair and makes him shiver regardless of what he’s wearing. Whispers soft miseries into his ears at night while the window refuses to close. Makes his teeth chatter, makes it so difficult to get comfortable enough to drift off at night and even more so to gather the willpower to pull out of bed in the morning.

Devon looks empty, regardless of if she is or not. Nobody’s outside. Nothing is outside but the cold, the white, the soft bitterness of the winter invading everything.

He brushes some stray strand of dark hair from his eyes, blinks a snowflake away as it lands gently against his lashes. A small cloud of white in front of his face that he soon realizes is his own breath. Gene doesn’t like the winter.

He wonders what his Phineas will look like in the winter. His shoes click against the concrete which has been cleared, evidently, fairly recently. He envisions the boy smiling, laughing, arms outstretched and head thrown back. Trying to catch snowflakes. Laughing at himself, laughing at Gene, laughing at anything there ever was.

Phineas. Bright, happy, shining against the grey sky, snowflakes in his soft hair. Those starbursts of green contrasting the colorless haze of the season all too drastically.

One of Gene’s hands comes forward to open the door to the dormitories. The other comes to rest on his cheek, confirming his suspicions-- he’s blushing.

He supposes he won’t have to imagine for much longer. His shoes click against the wood of the stairs that lead up to his and Phineas’s and some others floor. Six weeks is too long to spend starving for his lover’s touch. But the break is over and done with, and he’s back. Finny will be, too. Both of them, together. And then Gene can observe his angel with his eyes instead of his mind.

Gene is sick of observing him in his mind, he decides. It’s been six weeks of observing him in his mind, and he’s sick. His shoes click against the wood of the floor of the hallway. One door, two doors-- three doors, the third door to the left.

The door is already opened, and light floods into the hallway in a warm way, in a welcome way, in a way that makes Gene so incredibly dizzy he thinks for a second that he’s going to faint.

A hand comes up. Blushing.

He doesn’t step around the corner for a moment-- for a moment he’s afraid to. He’s scared to step in, to simply waltz in and see that miracle of a boy sitting at the window, those incredibly dark lashes fluttering lightly, a small smile sitting against his lips. Smiling at the snow, of all things. Splashes of freckles against his skin, a sweater swallowing his small frame.

Ethereal.

But he’s sick of imagining. His complete and total love somehow manages to drown out his insecurities, his fear, his uncertainty. He takes a deep breath, counts to three. Turns the corner. Turns his gaze up.

“Forrester!”

Stopping short, abrupt. He’s so surprised he has to blink once, twice, just to be certain that what he’s seeing is what is really in front of him. When the sight is confirmed as reality surprise gives way to distaste, which he’s certain is obvious when he feels his own nose scrunch up.

“Brinker,” He returns, as lightly as he can, trying his very hardest to keep that distaste out of his voice. The boy in question is standing by Phineas’s bed, hands in his jacket pockets, grinning a grin that in some way of it’s nature makes Gene want to punch him. Just a little bit. Those glasses askew on his face, and a spindly hand darts up to push them up on his nose.

“Brinker,” Gene repeats, a little tilt of his head to the side causing a strand of dark hair to fall into his eyes, “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing in my room?”

“Well, I’m next door, and I thought--”

“You’re not next door,” Gene interrupts, as gently as he can manage, his arms coming up to cross against his chest as he leans back against the doorframe, “Leper’s next door.”

“Leper  _ was  _ next door,” Brinker corrects him, that grin still on his lips, “He’s moved. To the old dorms.”

“The old dorms.”

“Sure. And now I’m here-- Or, rather, next door.”

“Fine. But that still doesn’t clear up why you’re here, if you’re next door.”

“What, Gene, can’t a pal say hello?”

It’s stupid, the whole situation is absolutely idiotic. Every bone in Gene’s body is aching for Phineas, and here in his place is Brinker Hadley. It’s cruel.

Gene’s not stupid, and the reality of this arrangement doesn’t elude him. Brinker is not Leper. And Leper may be more observant than Gene originally gave him credit for, but he’s certainly not nosy. He’s not loud, obnoxious, he doesn’t put his hands where they don’t belong or move game pieces according to how he thinks they should be placed. Leper doesn’t care for that. Leper’s a safe neighbor.  
Brinker?

Still. A smile pulls its way onto Gene’s face, a small one, an indulgent one, “Hello, Brinker.”

“Hello, Gene,” Brinker returns, in a sort of goofy way, even offering a bow that makes Gene snort a laugh.

“There, you’ve had your hello,” Gene finds himself grinning back at the boy, as infuriating as he is, as uneasy as him being next door makes Gene, “Now go away, I’m changing.”

“Yessir,” Brinker returns lightheartedly, in a teasing sort of way, going so far as to violently ruffle Gene’s hair as he passes through the doorway. Gene laughs at this, too, shoving the boy’s hands away as he leaves, calling something Gene doesn’t catch as he does.

The door hasn’t closed for a full minute when there’s a knock. A roll of his eyes, a little annoyed huff leaving his throat. His coat is on the floor, leaving him in a white button-up and his trousers, the school’s tie untied and simply hanging around his neck. One shoe is untied, the one he was planning on taking off before the interruption.

If Brinker is honest to God going to be this up close all winter… They’ll have a lot to be careful of. Another knock, louder this time, more obnoxious.

“Brinker-- honestly!” He calls through the door, making quick work of taking both of his shoes off, opting to simply leave the socks before he crosses the room and throws open the door, that distasteful scrunch in his nose.

A sort of muted blonde in his curls, less fire and more strawberry. It reminds Gene of pastels, washed out. Softer. Like how he used to look in the summer moonlight, with that soft peaceful grace about him, like a halo.

His skin, too. Paler, softer, but just as freckled and just as radiant and just as beautiful. Glowing, snowflakes caught on his skin, in his curls, in his lashes.

Even if everything else is paler now, softer, muted-- his eyes are just as bright. Big, bold, vivid and so breathtakingly green. Swimming with some blues now, but that’s the only evident effect the change in seasons has had on them.

His nose, his cheeks, the tips of his ears all flushed, red and pink from the cold. It reminds Gene of how he looks when he blushes, if he blushes. It’s pretty on him. Snowflakes in those soft curls. A bright smile on his lips, flushed red from the winter.

“Brinker?” Phineas repeats, his hands on those slim hips, covered up in white gloves. A coat over his shoulders, making him look a little bigger than he really is. Or maybe making him look even smaller, if you really look and you see that his waist dips in much smaller than the coat, and the coat is used to contrast rather than to deceive. Gene decides he looks smaller.

“Finny,” Gene says, and it’s all he can find it in him to say. His roommate laughs, and the sound is the most refreshing thing Gene has ever heard. Finny slips past him and into the room, his laughter following him. Gene closes the door behind him.

He turns. Phineas’s coat is already tossed onto his bed, leaving him in similar attire to Gene’s. Those green-blue eyes turn up, that smile never leaving his lips.

“So,” He says, his voice quiet and slow and deliberate, musical, sending icicles of shivers down Gene’s spine and through his veins. Gene missed his voice, missed his eyes, missed everything about him more than he knew it was possible to miss anything, “Brinker, huh?”

“He’s next door, now,” Gene tells him softly, watches his face for a change, for a reaction, “Leper’s moved to the old dorms.”

“Huh.”

He moves over to sit on his bed, untying his tie from around his neck and tossing it to the side with his coat. Gene watches as he makes languid, easy work of taking his shoes off. Careless. Dismissive. Gene stares, a sort of disbelief filling his chest.

“That’s it?”

“Hm?” A flash of green, of green that’s now sort of bluish as Finny meets his gaze again, those fingers gracefully slipping the loops of his shoelaces free, “What’s what?”

“Just ‘huh’. That’s it?”

“Well damn, Gene, should I write you an essay of my  _ very strong _ feelings on the matter?” His words are playful, light, carefree and spoken around soft laughter, around a pretty smile. Blueish green eyes disappear behind dark lashes and a stray strawberry blonde curl, “Brinker’s next door. So what?”

“Leper knew.”

The silence is enough to suck the air from Gene’s lungs, leaving a bitter cold in his veins and spreading through his chest as he watches Phineas’s fingers come to a gentle halt, watches the boy’s entirety come to a soft stop. Slowly, those eyes meet his again, a splash of color, questioning. Gene takes a breath.

“Leper knew about me and you. That we’re--”

“I know what we are, Forrester,” Finny chides him around a smile, and Gene knows it is his lover’s way of making light of this. Gene can’t find it in himself to oblige him with a smile.

“Well, he knew,” Gene continues, and when standing in front of Finny tense and shivering makes him feel as though his bones are close to snapping and withering away to ashes, he crosses over and sits beside his lover. He feels Phineas shift, the subtle tilt of his head in favor of Gene, the small twitch of his fingers towards him.

“He asked me about it once,” Gene tells him in a quiet voice, and a moment later Finny’s fingers are ghosting across the back of his neck, tangling in his hair in a gentle way, in a loving way, in a comforting way. Gene’s eyes flutter to a close against his will.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. And he would always stare at us after. He never said anything-- anything confrontational, I mean. It’s Leper. But if it’s that obvious… If  _ Leper  _ could observe that and read that far just from being across the wall--”

“Gene.”

“--This is Brinker we’re talking about. He’s so invasive about everything, I-- I swear he gets so intent on everything being how he thinks it should be--”

“Gene.”

“--He’s  _ going  _ to find out, Finny, and that isn’t paranoia. We--”

“ _ Gene _ .” His voice is just as loving, as comforting, but it’s firmer now. Coming to a crescendo, more intentional. It’s graceful when his free hand comes up and turns Gene’s face from the wall and to him, causing his gaze falling back onto his lover.

Phineas kisses him, and it feels like coming home. Gene’s eyes close, his head tilting in a comfortable, natural, perfectly easy way. The tension peels away from his bones, melts away from his skin as his hand comes up to card through that soft blonde. That easy, that quick. Just as the storm was getting bad, like a blizzard in the distance approaching too fast for him to make sense of, too strong, with no possible solution in his line of sight.

And then Phineas comes from behind him and takes his hand, spins him around and pulls him inside, gently coaxing him to sleep by the fire, hand in his hair.

God, Phineas.

They separate. Finny’s eyes flutter open again, search Gene’s face. Gene can see those gears working behind that pretty green.

“Nothing is going to happen. Brinker isn’t going to know anything, and we are going to be fine.”

“You can’t promise that, Finny.”

“Didn’t I say I’d never let anything bad happen to you?” His words are firm, deliberate. Meaningful. Gene can’t hold his gaze.

“You can’t promise--”

“To hell with that. Yes I can.” A kiss to Gene’s cheek, then to his jaw, a family of kisses at the sensitive juncture of Gene’s jaw and his ear. A soft breath comes out as a hushed sigh from Gene’s chest, the hand still carded in his lover’s hair tightening a fraction. He feels the boy smile against his neck.

“I mean it,” Finny tells him, “I mean it.”

His fingers fall from Gene’s face, ghost down his collar to undo his buttons. Gene, helpless to do anything but let his head fall back and close his eyes, feels those shivers shoot through his veins.

“I mean it,” Phineas repeats, in a hushed voice, and that is the last time that they speak before they both need to put all of their energy into being very quiet.

 

 

Classes are draining enough as it is, but they’re worse when they’re spent just waiting for Phineas. Trigonometry. Finny isn’t in this class. Gene is a good student, but today all he can do is stare out at the gentle flurries of white outside and imagine Phineas glowing softly and framed by that white. Smiling with the new softness the winter brings his features. Something teasing falling from his lips. Reckless and loving and soft and everything wonderful.

His eyes flicker to the clock. Almost twenty minutes left of class.

It’s been two weeks since they’ve been back. They haven’t talked about the potential situation Brinker being next door arouses, but it’s there. It’s there in how much newfound effort they put into keeping quiet, how skittish they both are about intimacy. Both of them-- Finny included. Maybe Gene could have believed that he was being paranoid if not for that, but if even his fearless, reckless Icarus is nervous…

A flicker of color among the flurry outside catches Gene’s eye, makes his gaze shift and the course of his thought change. It takes him a minute to process what he’s seeing. A person, a figure, a boy in the near distance, walking along. Gene checks for that strawberry blonde, but it’s covered up in a knit hat. The boy’s frame is small. He walks with a sort of grace, a sort of fluidity, a sort of angelic flow that seems impossible to exist on anyone. That in itself and Gene already knows, but when the boy turns to check behind him and Gene is greeted with a flash of bright pink from his shirt, he’s more certain than he’s certain that it’s snowing.

He checks the clock. Ten minutes. Torture.

His eyes flick back to outside the window, and the boy is gone from where he left him. Panic, senseless panic rises in Gene’s chest before he catches sight of him again, just in time to see him disappear into the gymnasium.

The rest of class is the longest ten minutes of his life.

 

The door of the gymnasium closes heavily behind him, making an all too loud sound that makes Gene wince a little. Dark eyes flicker about the main area, hesitating. Nobody should be in here, of course. So why is Phineas?

“Finny?” He calls, and listens as his voice bounces off the walls of the large area. He feels small as his eyes scan all around him, as he lets his coat slip from his shoulders and fall onto the gymnasium floor in a heap, in a blunt thud, leaving him in his clothes. His eyes catch on the door to the pool, wide open.

No. He steps closer, but of course he doesn’t believe he’ll actually find Finny as he crosses through the doorway.

Fluid, graceful, impossibly angelic. Swimming is sometimes described as the person cutting through the water, or ripping, or tearing at miraculous and impossible speeds. Not Phineas. There are hardly any splashes as he moves through the water, as he glides and travels through with an impossible grace at unfathomable speeds.

The door closes behind Gene. Phineas isn’t a swimmer, in this moment. Phineas is a part of the water, one with it. Finny is his own current, unslowing and breathtakingly beautiful.

Gene crosses the room, sits down next to the pool, carefully criss-crossing a safe distance from his roommate’s lane, incredibly careful not to get himself wet. Phineas comes to a graceful stop in front of him, his hands bursting from the water and catching the touch pad before he pulls himself up. His upper half slides from the water, his weight shifted to his forearms to keep him up. He smiles that beautiful smile, tilts his head, those pretty blonde curls thoroughly soaked, his eyes potentially greener from the water, potentially bluer.

“You time me?”

“I just got here.”

“Shame, I’d like to see how I did.”

“You were amazing,” Gene tells him, and watches as his eyes flicker up with a kind of emotion that Gene can’t quite read, “Trust me.”

Finny’s face gradually splits into an elated beam, a downright sunny expression that paired with the pool almost makes Gene forget it’s dead winter. Almost.

“You’re trying to make me blush, Forrester. It might work, too.”

“Finny, it’s winter. It’s the middle of winter.”

The boy hums, a sort of noncommittal sound, as he pulls himself up and out of the water to sit next to Gene. His body is beautiful, bare besides his bottoms and shining with the water and the sport. It’s the athlete in him-- he’s always otherworldly, but he’s completely indescribable when sports are involved.

“You’ve still got snow in your hair.”

“So you thought you’d just swim? In winter?”

“They have winter swimming in the olympics!”

“No, they don’t.”

And it’s a flash of blueish green as Phineas’s head turns to him, a look of sheer surprise, “They don’t?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, fine, then-- they should. It’s not that cold, it’s inside after all.”

Gene gives him a small look, one of fond exasperation, before his hand falls down to test the water. As expected, absolutely freezing.

“Finny, you’re crazy.”

“We should go on a date.”

Gene laughs, rolls his eyes, opens his mouth to return with something sarcastic. But then he catches Finny’s eyes again, that unwavering blue-green gaze, a little smile on his lips. Sincere. If Phineas is ever anything, it’s sincere.

“A date?” Gene repeats to him, hoping his emphasis on the phrase communicates to his lover what an absurd idea it is. Instead, he’s flashed a pretty smile, strawberry blonde curls falling into the boy’s face as he tilts his head playfully.

“Of course. I mean, we’re lovers.”

“I know that,” Gene’s voice, unfortunately, comes out just as flustery as he feels. Phineas huffs a small laugh, reaches up and brushes Gene’s dark hair from his eyes in a small act of affection. Gene can’t stand to look at him, always feeling so small under those loving touches.

“Lovers go on dates.”

“Not secret ones.”

“Secret lovers, secret dates. It isn’t rocket science.”

Gene takes the moment to shoot the boy a look, which only serves to make him laugh, in a cute way, in a bright way, in a pretty way. A carefree way, a reckless way, and if they were in danger of flying into the sun before, they’re in danger of falling through the ice now.

Is it possible that Icarus lived to see the winter? That the sea froze over and he looked beneath him and thought the danger was gone? He folded his wings and his feet fell softly onto the ice, testing first to be certain that it was solid enough to walk on before allowing his weight to rest there.

Gene always said he was a careful Icarus, an Icarus that was free of naivete, that would never allow his wings to melt. But an Icarus is an Icarus, isn’t he? If something is meant to happen, maybe it will happen no matter what you try.

And maybe Icarus will stand on the ocean and think he is safe, maybe Icarus will smile at the sun and stretch his arms to the snow and smile, and be happy, and for a moment be naive. But ice gets thinner. Sun melts snow as well as it melts copper wings.

Phineas’s lips meet his, softly, gently, like a promise, like a prayer, like a confession and like everything they have ever shared. Gene closes his eyes, and he knows what’s going to happen before it does. He feels Finny smile against his mouth, and the next instant his lover has pulled him down into the pool by his arms.

The chill hits his bones as soon as he’s under the water. Phineas goes under with him, kisses him. Gene doesn’t struggle, doesn’t burst from the water flailing and cursing. He closes his eyes and cards his fingers through soft blonde curls.

He imagines himself as Icarus in the ocean.

 

 

“Forrester!”

Gene watches Phineas turn to see who’s yelling before he follows suit himself, his eyes falling on none other than Brinker Hadley. He’s grinning that same grin as he falls into step between the pair. A sort of annoyance rises in Gene, fills his chest, but Phineas is all smiles. Naturally.

“Brinker,” Finny greets him, tilting his head in a sort of playful way, “Love the coat. Very, hm--”

“‘I got this out of the trash’?” Gene supplies flatly, which makes Phineas laugh brightly and Brinker wrinkle his nose. Both are immensely satisfying.

“Yeah, fine,” The boy returns, shoving Gene lightly with his elbow, “You two are never about, I swear. Always together and never with anyone else. Are you joined at the hip?”

“‘Course we are, Brinker, you damn fool. It’s godawful rude to make fun of disabled folk like that, you know, we can’t help our condition.”

“Finny, you’re something else,” Brinker grins, and then his gaze flickers down. His expression falters for a moment, first in confusion and then in mild, thinly veiled repulsion.

“Phineas, what the hell are you wearing?”

Finny blinks, briefly, looks down at himself. That damn pink shirt.

Phineas wears that shirt all the time, frequently, in between stealing Gene’s. He wore it all through the summer, threw out his explanation for it. Nobody cared about that damn pink shirt.

“Clothes,” He responds, grinning a very Phineas grin.

“No, cut it out. You look like a goddamn fairy.”

“And you look like a troll,” Phineas returns playfully, all smiles, “and Gene looks like--”

“I’m serious,” Brinker persists, and Gene’s blood turns icy in his veins. Phineas visibly falters, and his gaze flickers to Gene for just a moment, before he looks back at Brinker with an obvious discomfort.

Phineas, uncomfortable? He can talk his way out of anything-- him looking cornered in a discussion, especially this one?

Terrifying.

“What, are you gay?”

“Oh, honestly, Hadley,” Gene snaps suddenly, sharply, maybe a little more sharply than he originally intended. Both sets of eyes lock on him instantly, and he feels his cheeks turning red. Brinker looks mildly shocked. Phineas looks a little scared. The words spill out without his asking them to.

“You’re such an ass, why don’t you mind your damn business and stop trying to push idiocracy on people who didn’t ask for it.”

“What does that mean, Forrester?” Brinker looks grave, now, almost threatening, and by now the group has stopped walking. Brinker is too close to Gene for any sort of comfort, his eyes sharp and serious and angry in a way that Gene isn’t used to, isn’t acquainted with. He stands his ground, and he can feel a break in the ice beneath Icarus’s feet.

“Is that a confession?”

“What the hell,  _ no _ ,” And Gene does his best to look disgusted, “Finny’s not gay, idiot. It’s just stupid of you to raise hell about what shirt he’s wearing. What’re you gonna do, stone him? Leave him the hell alone. If anyone looks like a faggot it’s you. Ask anyone.”

Brinker doubtlessly has more to say, but Gene promptly leaves, and he can hear Phineas following him at a safe distance. 

 

“That was really stupid.”

Gene doesn’t look up from his homework. He can see Phineas just out of the corner of his eye staring at him from his bed. Silence hangs in the air, has been all afternoon. A small huff following a pause, before Phineas shifts, “You didn’t have to yell at him, Gene. I had it.”

“Brinker Hadley is the most insufferable person--”

“I know.”

“He’s been talking about enlisting, I wish he would. Get him out of my hair.”

“Gene. Calm down.”

And finally Gene looks up, meets those pretty eyes, “He looked like he wanted to fucking kill you. Did you see?”

“Yes, I saw.”

“I’m serious, Finny. This could be bad.”

Phineas is over in an instant, kissing the life out of Gene, filling his lungs with sugar and filling his stomach with butterflies and making him dizzy. His face heats up, he can feel it.

God, Phineas.

“It’s going to be fine.”

“What if it’s not?”

“It will be.” Phineas repeats firmly, his hand finding Gene’s and holding it. A pause, and then in a soft voice, a gentle voice, “I said I’d keep you safe and I meant it.”

Gene’s eyes fall closed, his fingers tightening a fraction over Finny’s, “Who’s keeping  _ you  _ safe?”

 

 

“I meant what I said.”

It’s dark, it’s late. Near midnight, the sky dark and painted with galaxies and starbursts. Snow fallen around them, in their hair. The river they sit by is frozen, the tree beside them the same one they’d been jumping from all summer. Gene’s gaze turns away from the sky to land on his lover’s face, light and soft and painted with that consistent contentment.

Those freckles splattering his face, those curls caught in the breeze. Beautiful, breathtaking, angelic. Perfect. Gene swallows around the affection, the adoration.

“What did you say?” He asks him softly. The boy smiles, shifting to sit a little closer.

“About us on a date. I was serious.”

“That’s crazy. We can’t do that.”

“Secret date! Gene, it’ll be so much fun. Romantic.”

“How do you go on a secret  _ date _ ?”

Phineas laughs, shifts even closer. Gene’s eyes flutter a little, involuntary.

“Easy. We dress like we’re close friends, we go to town, and we do whatever. Like that time on the beach-- that wasn’t a date, but this would be exactly like that. Except maybe with a few more secret touches. And a little more whispering.”

It’s more than a little embarrassing when Gene physically shivers.

“Two weeks from now. Fair?”

Gene kisses him quiet.

 

 

The town is lit up with Christmas lights and decorations. It’s beautiful, especially once the sun sets. Phineas looks beautiful framed against the colors, absolutely breathtaking as he smiles and points at things and talks about anything and absolutely everything. Green-blue eyes big and bright, blonde curls caught in the wind. Everything about him glowing in the moonlight and the lights of the decorations.

They go nowhere in particular, do nothing in particular, just move aimlessly through the town looking at things. Smiling at things, laughing at things.

More than a few times, Phineas’s fingers brush against his in a way that is very intentional and made to look accidental. It’s repeated throughout the night from either side of the couple. Lingering touches, soft touches, stolen glances and meaningful small smiles.

“Gene, look at this!”

Gene turns, looks. Phineas is at a small display table outside of a shop. Sitting on the table is a golden music box. A golden angel stands on the top, wings outstretched and head tilted up. He’s bare, exposed, vulnerable and naive, his hands stretched beside him.

Phineas turns the handle, and the angel spins slowly, a soft song starting to play.

 

It’s near midnight when they find themselves in an empty alley kissing the breath out of each other. Phineas’s back is to the brick wall, and Gene holds his hands on either side of his head, fingers entwined, kissing him like he’s drowning, like Phineas is a lifetime supply of air. Finny is just as enthusiastic, squirming between Gene and the wall, little broken gasps and little soft sounds falling from his lips between feverish kisses.

It’s beautiful, and if Gene’s being really honest with himself-- it’s sexy as hell. Finny’s hips jump up when Gene’s kisses move to his lover’s neck, a gorgeous sound coming up from his throat. Affection swells in Gene’s chest, and at the exact same time heat starts to pool below his stomach. He can already feel himself getting aroused, and he knows Phineas can feel it too. It’s evident in the way he’s curling in, the sounds he’s making, his arms wrapped tight around Gene’s head in a way that he can pull lightly at his hair, the way Gene’s name is falling from his lips in little broken sounds.

They’ve kissed a million times. They’ve seen each other naked, and they’ve messed around, and they’ve explored loving, sexual touches along each other’s bodies.

Making love is another thing entirely, however. Gene knows how men make love to women, of course, everyone does. But men making love to men is something else entirely. New territory, foreign territory, forbidden territory. But exciting territory, as he leaves trails of kisses along his lover’s collarbone, as he sucks just enough to be sure there won’t be marks, as he trails his hands up underneath Finny’s sweater to feel his soft skin.

For whatever reason, Gene knows it’s time. It’s something to do with them, with their forces and their lives and their loves and it’s something that Gene can’t place, but Gene knows if it was ever meant to happen it’s meant to happen tonight.

“Gene,” Finny whispers against his hair, his grip tightening just a little, “Gene…”

“I have cash on me,” Gene tells him, his words against his lover’s skin, his hands on Phineas’s hips, squeezing lightly, “I can get us a room in that hotel we passed. We don’t have to go back to Devon tonight.”

Because even if it’s time, this isn’t the place. And neither is Devon.

 

Nobody asks a lot of questions. That’s good. Gene supposes they look drunk with how excited they both are, and he supposes most people’s initial response wouldn’t be to suspect a homosexual affair. Gene buys the room with the money his mother gave him before sending him back to Devon. Emergency money-- special occasion money. This is a special occasion.

Phineas is laughing, giggling, beaming and delighted while Gene locks the door. And then he lets himself drown in Phineas.

Licking kisses, tongues messy and passionate and all too excited as they slide together, as he nips Phineas’s lip and sucks on it, as Finny sucks on his tongue, as he feels heat and affection and passion spreading through his veins.

As he leads the boy to bed, he realizes that Phineas isn’t explicitly aware of his intentions, and he breaks a passionate kiss in favor of a conversation.

“Finny,” He starts, resting his forehead against his, his hands moving from his face down to his hips, gently resting there. Phineas laughs softly, the excitement evident in that blue-green.

“What’s the matter?” He asks softly, and Gene shakes his head softly.

“Nothing is. I have an idea, and I think it’s perfect, but I need to know how you’re thinking.”

“What is it?”

Phineas is breathless now. Gene can tell he knows, in the way his eyes blew wide like that, in the way he’s holding his breath now. Affection swells in his chest.

“I love you,” He confesses quietly.

“I love you too, Gene.”

“I want to make love to you.”

Only a second after he’s finished the confession, Finny pulls him into a passionate kiss by his face. Gene falls into the kiss, falls into Phineas, lets his lover card his hands through his hair and kiss him breathless. Heat rises to his cheeks, and heat pools in his stomach. Months ago he would have been embarrassed beyond belief at kissing his best friend and getting aroused against his hip, but embarrassment is the last thing on his mind right now.

Especially when Finny’s hands trail down from his hair to tug at his coat, in an obvious gesture. Gene moves back to take the coat off. Finny’s hands stay at his neck, holding him, pressed close to him and breathing in little gasps. The second the coat is gone Phineas’s follows suit, discarded on the floor beside Gene’s. In an instant Gene’s back is flat on the bed, Finny straddling his hips and kissing him, kissing him. Fast, fast, everything moving so fast that Gene’s dizzy, seeing stars spinning in circles.

“Phineas,” Gene gasps, finally managing to pull away, to rest his forehead against his lover’s, “Finny, slow down.”

“Why?” His voice comes out whinier than Gene’s used to hearing him, more desperate. Gene trails soft kisses along his cheekbone, then his jaw and down his neck, listens to him while he gasps. He sounds beautiful, he sounds like music, his skin soft like an angel’s against Gene’s fingers. Gene loves him. Loves him more than anything, loves him more than life, loves him with everything he has and everything he knows how to give.

Finny settles after a while, calming to a sort of soft, gentle, sleepy intimacy rather than that tearing, clawing passion. Gene loves that passion, it’s beautiful, it’s hot, but he knows it’s not the time for it.

“I’m going to take your clothes off,” Gene says against his jaw, gentle, soft, followed up by a little loving kiss to his collarbone. The sigh following is breathless, soft, as Finny nods and Gene feels his eyes flutter closed against his hair.

His hands find Finny’s collar, set to work unbuttoning him. Slowly, carefully. Down his chest, exposing soft skin and freckly shoulders. He’s beautiful.

“Do you know how?” Finny asks him softly. Gene glances at him, hesitates, before admitting quietly that he doesn’t, not really. Finny smiles softly.

“I do. You’re going to change your mind.”

“No I’m not,” Gene tells him without hesitation. A glance at Finny’s face, and the boy looks about as lovestruck as Gene feels, his fingers curling against Gene’s scalp.

“It’s… well, it’s almost just like with a girl. Just with different anatomy.”

“Yeah?”

Finny nods, moving to oblige as Gene slips his shirt from off of his shoulders. He gently pushes Gene back down onto the bed before his own fingers set to work on Gene’s button-up.

“It would take a lot of preparation, but I’ve been practicing.”

Phineas is blushing. Embarrassed? Gene doesn’t understand why. He thinks this is beautiful, he thinks it’s indescribably exciting. The idea that Finny’s been practicing, however that means, that he’s been considering love-making that much… it has Gene’s heart in his throat. All he can do is run his fingertips along Finny’s hipbones while his lover speaks, a little breathless.

“How does it go?”

Finny tucks a curl from his face, glances at Gene, before continuing his task and his explanation, “Uhm… well, I’d have to be really aroused. Shouldn’t be a problem, since you’re here.” He takes the moment to press a kiss to Gene’s cheek before he pulls him back up into a sitting position. Finny winds his legs around his waist before slipping him out of the shirt, his forehead pressed to Gene’s.

“I know you said you wanted to, but this is the part where you might get squirmy.”

“I won’t get  _ squirmy _ . I said I wanted to make love to you and I meant it, Finny.”

A small smile quirks in the corner of the boy’s mouth, and Gene kisses him. Phineas returns the kiss, lingering, pressed close, before he pulls back to look at him, “Maybe we should just touch each other to start. Maybe that thing from before, where they were together in my hand. Just so I’m turned on enough that it won’t hurt so much.”

“It hurts?” Gene repeats, “Christ, Finny, what are we doing?”

“Not much,” Finny reassures him, kissing his forehead before his hands trail down to Gene’s belt, undoing it without removing it and then popping his button, “It’s okay, not much. Just a little, it burns at first. It has to stretch, and big as you are it has to stretch quite a damn bit. But it feels good once I get used to it. With my fingers, at least.”

Gene’s not any less confused, but Phineas doesn’t elaborate beyond that before he peels himself out of Gene’s lap in favor of kneeling on the floor in front of him. Gene watches, confused, curious. The boy meets his eyes, smiling a little smile before he pulls Gene from his zipper and carefully puts him in his mouth.

Gene sees stars, a gasp pulling itself from his throat. In an instinct his hand shoots out to card through Finny’s curls, every muscle in his body pulling tight. Finny hums, softly, those pretty eyes closed gently and hidden behind gorgeous lashes, and that hum sends incredible vibrations through Gene’s shaft. He can feel himself stiffening in Finny’s mouth, the boy’s tongue pressed up against the underside, warm and wet and so soft. He can’t help the sound he makes.

“Finny--”

He starts sucking. Gene cries out, throws his head back and can’t help the moans that come up from his throat. He’s trying his best to keep his hips still because common sense tells him that that will choke his lover, but it feels so overwhelmingly incredible that he almost can’t help it.

His grip in Finny’s hair tightens as he curls in, unsure of what to do with himself in this moment, of how to respond to such phenomenal pleasure in his veins. Sounds fall from his lips unfiltered as Phineas sucks, tilts his head and opens his eyes for a moment to check Gene’s reactions before letting them flutter gently closed again, keeps sucking. It feels amazing.

“Finny, I-- I’m close--”

Phineas pulls back in an instant, his breath heavy, his lips red and his cheeks pink. A strangled sound comes from Gene, and he reaches down to finish before Finny’s hands catch his, intertwining their fingers and shooting up to kiss him breathless.

“No, don’t,” Finny tells him when he pulls back a little, “I need you hard. No time for that refractory if we’re gonna make love.”

Gene doesn’t understand, but he nods anyway, quickly, without hesitation, “What now?”

“I need to come,” Phineas tells him quietly, “It helps, for some reason.”

Gene reaches for him, pulls him up and back onto the bed by his waist. Gaze turning down between his lover’s legs, Finny’s already hard. Very hard, almost as hard as Gene is.

“Were you--?”

“Yes,” Phineas nods. Gene presses forward, kissing his neck, his hand trailing down to start pumping him gently. Finny gasps, a soft sound, before his head falls down to rest on Gene’s shoulder. His hands come up, hooking under Gene’s arms to hug his shoulders, and shivers rush down Gene’s spine as he throws his best effort into making his lover feel good.

It isn’t long before Finny spills into his hand, his back arching, a beautiful soft sound leaving his lips as he tucks his face further into Gene’s neck and hugs him tighter.

Gene’s breathless as he pulls his hand away, wiping it on the sheets before kissing Finny’s forehead, “I love you.”

“Love you too, Forrester.”

“What now? Did that feel okay?”

“It felt spectacular, Gene. You’re wonderful,” Phineas tells him, pressing kisses along his jawline. He’s trembling from the orgasm, breathing unsteadily. Gene lets him be affectionate as much as he likes before he’s slipping out of his pants altogether. Gene follows suit, and Finny kisses him again. He has a sort of nervous energy to him, like he’s honestly scared that Gene won’t adore making love to him down to his bones. It’s ridiculous.

“Just tell me what I need to do,” Gene prompts gently, following it up with a kiss to his cheek. Phineas breathes out softly, closing his eyes before he takes Gene’s hand.

“I can show you.”

Gene doesn’t hesitate, just nodding. A smile quirks at Finny’s lips, before he gently leads Gene’s hand down between his legs. He pauses, lets out a small breath, tucks his face into Gene’s neck. He shifts his hand in a graceful motion, aligning his middle finger with Gene’s and leading him farther back before gently pressing down on his finger.

Gene’s face heats up instantly.

Phineas makes a sound, a small sound, and Gene’s not sure if it’s pleasure or discomfort. Gene doesn’t move, can’t do anything for the moment but blush and process. Phineas’s entrance is soft, warm, and as Finny’s finger curls he slips in just a little, to his first knuckle. A small sound leaves his own throat, and he feels Finny shift against his shoulder. He understands why he was embarrassed-- he would be too. Finny twitches a little around Gene’s finger, and more than anything else he’s  _ tight _ .

“That’s so tight, Finny,” Gene tells him gently, his free hand coming up to card through his hair, “I’m supposed to go inside of you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that’s going to fit?”

“I told you I’ve been practicing,” Finny reminds him softly, his fingers curling against the back of Gene’s neck, making him shiver, “Add another finger, and go deeper. You won’t break me.”

Gene obliges, once he figures out how. A sound leaves Finny’s throat and it does absolutely nothing to amend Gene’s blushing.

“You said it hurts?”

“N-no. It does if you stretch, but fingers don’t stretch so much, since I’m so aroused and since I’ve been practicing. That feels really good, Gene.”

“Am I going to hurt you later?” Gene asks quietly, and Finny hushes him, leaving strings of kisses across his neck.

“Don’t worry about it. For now… ah, deeper, and kinda curl your fingers. Feel around.”

Gene follows the instructions he’s given, carefully, gently, in soft motions. Finny’s insides are ridiculously soft, warm, and of course-- very tight. His lover arches back into his hand, his front half coming forward into him with the motion, small sounds falling against Gene’s shoulder. Gene pauses, considers the positioning of his hand. He shifts to sort of cup him between his legs, his thumb resting in the curve of his thigh. He finds that his fingers move with new ease. He doesn’t miss how this positioning makes it so that every curl of his fingers presses into Finny’s balls and makes his lover gasp into his skin.

“Ah!” It’s an explosive sound, a sudden one, and Finny jumps against Gene’s hand and scares him to his bones, and the apology for hurting Phineas is already on his lips when Finny’s voice comes out desperate, “Mn-- Gene, touch where you just touched me again.”

Gene falters, trying to retrace his movements before his fingers find the same spot and press down. It’s a little swell against his fingertips, and Phineas outright moans. Gene takes a second to catch up before he works his fingers into a rhythm of pressing into that spot, a steady melody of his fingers working that area and listening to Finny whine and moan and cry out and try and keep his voice down, failing spectacularly. Heat rises in Gene’s face as he holds his lover close with his free hand, heat spreading in his stomach.

“Can you come like this?” Gene asks him, breathlessly. Phineas shakes his head.

“N-no. No, I can’t. Not by itself, at least. But I almost do, sometimes. God, it-- it feels spectacular.”

“Can you lay down?”

Gene’s hand stills its movement gradually, and Finny squirms a little as Gene pulls it back. The boy looks at him for a second before moving to lay down on the bed, his knees pulled up and his hands splayed carelessly on either side of his head. He looks beautiful. 

After a moment of just looking at him, Gene eventually reaches out, gingerly, gently, and spreads his lover’s legs. He settles himself between them, and reaches down to continue what he’d been doing. Phineas’s hand comes out to catch his wrist before he can.

Panic rises in his chest. He’s certain that Phineas wants to stop, has decided the love making and the intimacy isn’t worth the pain, that Gene isn’t worth any of this hassle. That he wants to go back to Devon, or stay here and go to sleep. Anything but make love with Gene.

“No, no,” Finny says breathlessly, and Gene feels that terror sharp in his veins, “You don’t have to do that forever. We can… you know. We can try the actual bit now.”

Gene stops, blinks once, twice, then a small breath falls from his throat. He nods, “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” Finny laughs, softly, “Do you have any lotion or anything?”

Gene’s brows furrow a little, in confusion, “Lotion?”

“If you put it over you before you go inside it makes it easier.”

It sounds like a strange idea if such a thing ever existed, but Gene obliges his lover anyway. It takes him a second to find lotion, but he eventually finds a bottle in the bedside drawer. It’s scentless, white. Finny beams. He sits up, his legs over Gene’s thighs as he takes the bottle and pours some into his own hand.

“Relax, okay?”

Gene nods, watches Finny reach forward and gently spread a coat of the white over his penis. His breath hitches, his face heating up-- it’s cold, and Finny’s hand is so soft, and his movements are so gentle and it sends a sort of ginger pleasure spreading through him, filling his stomach with butterflies.

“Feel okay?”

“Y-yes.”

“You can put a little where you’re going in, too. It’ll make it easier.”

Finny lays back down. Gene looks at him for a moment, admiring him, enjoying the view, before he spreads some of the lotion over his fingers and carefully presses them to Finny’s pink rim. The boy’s breath hitches a little, and his back arches ever so slightly. Gene glances at him, before carefully circling his fingers around the tight opening. Then he presses in, gently, and works into a rhythm of gently sliding in and out.

“Mn-- That’s okay. I think we’re ready.”

Gene nods, quickly, one hand bracing under Finny’s arm and the other carefully aligning himself with Finny. He hears his lover suck in a breath and hold it, and his gaze flickers to his face. He looks embarrassed, he looks exactly how Gene feels. Nervous, flustered, but so excited he’s trembling. Gene holds his breath too as he pushes inside.

“Ah! Fuck!”

Gene stops dead. The tip is just barely in, and it’s indescribably tight. It feels amazing, mindblowing, like nothing Gene’s ever felt in his life. Better than his hands, better than Finny’s hands, better than Finny’s mouth. Anything. It’s the best thing he’s ever felt. It’s heaven. It’s pure euphoria.

But Finny looks like he’s in pain, and hell if that’s not more important.

“D-does it hurt?” Gene asks him, and Phineas nods quicker than anything.

“Don’t-- don’t pull out-- Christ, it’s so  _ big _ !”

“It is?” Gene’s cheeks are burning, and Finny is practically writhing underneath him, those sounds still leaving his throat.

“Yes, goddammit!” Finny whines, his legs pulling up slightly against Gene’s sides, like they want to close. Gene swallows.

“We can stop, if you--”

“No!” Finny protests, pulling Gene down by his face and kissing him breathless. Gene kisses him back, just as passionate, not sure what to do with his hips. Seeing galaxies from the pleasure of just his head inside, from the twitching heat wrapped around him.

“N-no, don’t stop,” Finny manages against Gene’s mouth, “Don’t stop. Go slow, okay?”

Gene nods, butterflies in his stomach alongside that bursting pleasure as he slowly moves his hips forward. Finny throws his head back, cries out, and Gene continues along that slow pace, anxiously waiting for a command for him to stop.

It never comes. Finny’s writhing, crying out, strings of curses and exclamations falling from his lips. Gene pushes gently, slowly inside of him, his face pressed to Finny’s shoulder as he tries to ignore the otherworldly pleasure.

It feels exactly like he always imagined sex would feel like. Hot, wet, so tight. But it’s tighter than he ever thought it would be, and he’s much more frightened, more worried. His lover cries out in pain beneath him, clinging to him.

This feels as if it goes on for an eternity, until finally Gene finds his hips pressed against the backs of Finny’s thighs, fully inside. He stops, struggling to breathe properly as Phineas slowly, gradually calms himself down.

“I’m so sorry,” Gene tells him.

“N-no, no, it’s okay. It hurts at first-- I really didn’t think it was going to hurt that much--”

“Does it hurt still?”

A pause, a little uncertain sound, “...Yes. But it’s going away. We just need to work it out.”

A kiss to Gene’s cheekbone, to his jaw, to his neck, before Finny whispers, “Just make love to me, Gene. Slowly. It’ll start feeling good.”

Gene’s cheeks burn red, and he nods, closing his eyes as he slowly pulls his hips up. Slowly, carefully back down. Phineas sucks in a breath, holds it, tightens his grip on Gene’s hair.

Back, forth. In, out. Careful. Slow. Gentle. It feels so indescribably good, it feels like heaven, and it feels like an eternity later that Finny’s pained sounds quiet, and then gradually turn to pleasured ones.

“Gene,” He whispers, a small sound, a broken one.

“Feel alright?”

“It-- It feels good. I like it.”

Gene’s quiet after that, and so is Finny. There’s no more conversation, at least the spoken kind. It’s just Gene and Phineas, making love. Small gasps, lingering touches, little sounds of pleasure and little displays of affection. They make love for most of the night, until finally they fall asleep curled up to each other, content and in love.

 

 

It hurts when his shoulder connects with the brick, his books falling from his arms and scattering in the snow. He’s confused for all of half a second before he can feel fire in his eyes, a frustrated, provoked rage under his skin. His gaze snaps up to Brinker.

“What the hell was that?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Like hell you do,” Gene snaps, wanting nothing more than to break the kid’s nose.

They’re in an alley of the school, nobody around. Silent. It’s tense, and it’s scary, and Gene can feel the ice getting thinner under Icarus’s feet. Brinker looks to one side, then to the other, like he’s making sure they’re alone. When he looks back to Gene he looks frantic.

“Listen, I know he’s your best friend,” Brinker starts, and Gene’s blood freezes, “But I’ve been watching and-- and I’m serious.”

“What?”

“He looks at you. Looks at you like boys look at girls. He looks absolutely dopey, all doe-eyes and smiles, and--”

“Hadley, you’re insane. I mean it. You’re talking a lot of absolute shit, and I don’t really want to hear it.”

“I know he’s your friend, Forrester, but I think I’m onto something.”

Brinker’s eyes are blown big, his glasses askew on his nose. He looks hellbent, and it scares Gene to his core.

“He’s completely smitten. I can tell.”

“You’re crazy.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with him--”

“Stop talking,” Gene tells him, grabbing his books before he shoves past the boy.

“Gene, I’m serious! He’s sick, and it’s not right to leave it alone!”

“ _ God _ , shut the fuck up!” Gene calls over his shoulder, “You’ve got to be in everything, don’t you? There’s nothing wrong with him, leave it the hell alone.”

He goes back to his room. Phineas smiles that beautiful smile, starts a funny story, but Gene cuts him off with a kiss. His lover falters for a second before he melts into it, and Gene wastes no time getting rid of their clothes, with every intention of making love to him.

 

 

“It’s thawing a little.”

Gene looks over at him, and he flashes that cute grin before he stands up, presses his toe gently against the iced over river. After a moment it cracks under the pressure, and Finny steps back, laughing.

“Winter’s not forever, I guess. But you’ve still got snow in your hair.”

Gene can’t help the bright smile that comes to his face as Phineas sits back down. He opens his mouth, and he’s going to say something. Something sweet, something special, something intimate. Something about how much he loves him, something about how much he needs him. But he’s cut off when someone calls their names behind them.

He watches first as Phineas turns, and then he turns himself. Brinker and the other boys are standing on the edge of the hill leading down to the river. Phineas blinks once, then looks at Gene in a sort of questioning way.

“Think they want to talk with us, pal,” Finny says quietly, and the smile doesn’t really reach his eyes. Icarus’s ice splits down the middle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/


	4. Winter Session (part two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gene previously assumed that nothing could be worse than that biting silence. And he quickly learned that he was wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took SO LONG. I AM SO SORRY.  
> i hope this is worth the wait. i love you all so much, you've all been so sweet and supported me so much, even with the wait, even when i felt like no good. thank you so much.  
> while i did my best to foreshadow, this chapter is not like the others. while i don't want to spoil... just, proceed with caution.

There was something in the air when Gene first stepped foot into Devon for the summer. Looking back he thought everyone felt it, but maybe it was just him. Just him, wrapped up in his own quivering, gnawing anxiety and his own paranoia and his own uncertainties.

Whatever the case he felt strange. He remembers how his face felt against the summer sun, the way he had to squint to avoid being blinded. He’d been to Devon before, of course, he was a student-- but for some reason he couldn’t quite place it was different this time. It was different. He remembered the concrete clicking under his shoes, trying in a daze to find his dorm. It was different this session. And he had a new roommate.

Leper had been a decent roommate. He was quiet, if not a little odd. He didn’t care much for being disruptive, always so wrapped up in whatever strange thing he was doing this time. Gene hoped his new roommate would be like Leper, or close if nothing else.

He knew as soon as he opened the door and his eyes found themselves on the boy that his wishes had been cast out of the window of God himself.

Dazzling green eyes, splatters of freckles like stars and constellations across his skin, his nose and his cheeks. Everything about him bright and merry, in the way he turned around and those golden curls bounced, in the way he laughed and in the way he threw a dizzying smile at Gene.

“Jesus, pal, you scared me,” He continued laughing about whatever he was laughing about as Gene came into the room, closing the door behind him. There was definitely something in the air, something that felt like it was eating his chest from the inside. And something told him that this was going to be a strange session, at the very best.

“I’m Gene.”

“Phineas! But you can call me Finny, if you like it, either works.”

Those eyes, those bright, dazzling green eyes, that beautiful smile. Looking back, Gene was stupid not to have seen it sooner.

 

“What’s this about?”

Finny tosses Gene a little look over his shoulder, like he’s chiding him for the outburst, and Gene’s torn between agreeing with him and being outraged that his lover expects him to stay quiet. To stay silent as their ice gets thinner, to watch and wait.

Wait is the correct word. It’s all they’re doing-- waiting. They’re in the church at the school, everyone but Brinker and Finny in the rows. It’s convenient, because Gene has a feeling he really, really needs to pray.

Finny sits in a red chair quite in front of the pews, his back to them, exactly where Brinker put him before disappearing to wherever he disappeared to.

Other boys from his school sit as confused as him in the pews, whispering to each other, glancing at Finny, at Gene. It’s dark. It’s got to be near midnight. The church is shadowy, echoing it’s own silence, casting small slivers of moonlight across strawberry curls.

And just when all of this feels unbearable, Brinker reappears. A bible in hand, he comes up in front of Finny, a wicked smile on his face, like a wolf with a rabbit pinned to a tree, helpless. It makes Gene want to be sick, scream forever. The strawberry golden curls of his lover shift as he looks up at Brinker, and if Gene closes his eyes he can imagine the blank, stoic look on his pretty face.

“We’re here for something important--”

“Yeah? Mind sharing, pal?”

That makes the boys in the pews snicker, Gene included. Phineas. Leave it to Finny to be so blunt, so hilariously blunt. Facing his sun and he’s still careless. Brinker casts a little annoyed look, like a child giving a presentation interrupted by the class. Or like a teacher being spoken over by his class, helpless and irritated. Suffice it to say that Brinker’s hold had slipped a little, and it managed to give Gene some ease.

“I will, don’t worry. But first, swear on the bible that you’ll tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

It makes Gene’s blood go cold, it makes him sit up a little straighter to watch. Finny barely reacts, and Gene can see the calm, smooth, elegant motion of his freckled hand in the moonlight come up to rest on the bible, and his even tone repeating, “Swear.”

“Are you a homosexual?”

The room goes quiet, then, the shocked faces of Gene’s peers proving that they really didn’t know what this was all about. The way Finny’s hand twitches, falters as it falls back into his lap proves the same thing.

Finny glances over his shoulder for a moment, before replying, “I might be, dunno. Are you?”

“The comedy act isn’t going to save you this time. Yes or no?”

“What the hell, Brinker?” It’s Gene, in a shocked and helpless outburst. Brinker only casts him a sympathetic look before turning his predatory gaze back to Finny.

“Well?”

“Yes.”

There’s a moment where everyone in the room is too shocked to react, to even make a sound. Stunned silent, stunned still, stunned cold. It’s like Gene’s wings are melting and his ice is breaking at the exact same time, like he’s tilting his head up to the cruel and silent sun and reaching for mercy and receiving nothing but the deafening silence that might as well be cacophony in this damn church.

That silence was his mercy, he learns as Brinker continues. A wicked grin, a tilt of his head, looking smug.

“Are you in love with any of these boys?”

“Yes.”

There isn’t the still stunned silence, this time. This time everyone looks at each other with their shocked expressions. Gene is still. Keeps his eyes trained on those pretty, soft curls.

“Which one? Stand up, face them, and name him.”

It’s cruel. It’s so unfathomably cruel, and Gene wants nothing more than to swoop down himself and save him. He can’t. Those curls rise, the pretty slope of his shoulders, the gentle curve of his waist, his pretty legs as he turns around to face them. Those dazzling eyes. Looking calmer and more collected than anything Gene could have imagined. And more beautiful-- always so much more beautiful.

Green eyes flickering over the boys. Silence.

“Gene Forrester.”

That same silence. Every eye falling on him, burning him from the inside out. Melting his wings.

“Is he in love with you?”

The silence this time is even worse. Gene waits, lets those beautiful eyes fall on him. He’s silent as he waits to follow Finny to whatever happens for them.

Quiet. Something in that pretty blue-green shifts.

“No. He isn’t.”

It’s like the floor breaks, falls away. Gene feels like he’s been hit, struck, knocked cold and out of breath. The worst kind of feeling shoots down his spine. Brinker doesn’t give him a break.

“Of course he isn’t. Your abnormality is at his expense, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t ask for this. He isn’t the one at fault just for being the object of a faggot’s desire, is he?”

“Naturally.”

“Have you ever had sex with him?”

That time in town, his pretty gasps, his soft hands grasping at the sheets, both of them chanting ‘ _ I love you’  _ and each other’s names. Love in the purest form Gene has ever known, and that he will ever know again.

“No.”

“Have you kissed him?”

All of those times leading up, the stolen kisses, the confusion, Finny as his beautiful Icarus framed in golden fire.

“No.”

“Have you wanted to?”

“Of course.”

Brinker opened the bible on a page with a red bookmark, and read as loudly and as clearly as he could, as if he wanted the whole world to hear what he was about to say. Finny was quiet, his eyes trained on Gene’s. Unwavering.

“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own hands.”

Shock, forcing words from Gene’s throat rather than keeping them down, this time, “Hadley--”

“But Finny, you’ve sworn that you and Gene haven’t bedded. Right?”

“Right.”

“Which means there’s still time.”

Silence. Dark eyes sweeping over the boys, and then Brinker continued in that same loud voice.

“Our classmate is a bomb waiting to go off. He and Gene haven’t done anything detestable-- but if we hadn’t intervened who knows what might have happened? What sort of sin he might have pulled Gene and  _ himself _ into? How he would have condemned them both?”

His throat feels raw, “Brinker--”

“And who knows what can happen if we let it continue, yeah?” It’s another boy this time, standing up in the pews. There’s a sort of fire in his eyes as he looks at Phineas, and it makes Gene want to be sick, “It didn’t have to be Gene-- it could have been any one of us.”

Murmuring agreement through the pews, another boy piping in, “Think about it, if we let it continue, we’re sinners just as bad. Godawful sinners.”

“And if Phineas is plagued with sinful mortal thoughts, the most merciful thing we can do is send him to God before he does anything damnable.”

“Are you fucking mental?” Gene couldn’t have stopped the words if he wanted to. He didn’t want to, “You’re all talking about  _ Finny _ . He’s your friend!”

“Forrester, listen--”

“Finny lied!” Gene spat, quickly, trying to yell over the rising fire in the chapel, desperate to condemn himself and refusing to let Phineas burn without him, “He lied-- I love him too.”

“We know he’s your friend, Gene, but you have to understand-- this isn’t you! His ungodly influence is not you!” Brinker yells back, over the boys as they scream things at Finny. Finny, still, quiet, his pretty green eyes still on Gene. Calm, so calm. Soft. Gene can’t breathe.

“We don’t blame you.”

“No--”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“No! Listen, goddamnit!”

“Look at this! Look at him!” Brinker turned on his heel and screamed over the boys to be heard. There was fire in his expression, his voice dripping with rage, like he was possessed. Like everything evil and angry and sadistic was inside his classmate. Like it had crawled down his throat and clawed a home in his stomach.

It was terrifying. His glasses askew on his face, his eyes wild and his hair disheveled. A button popped on his shirt.

“This is the effect he has already! This is what sinful influence does to godly people! It twists and sickens and contorts them past who they are-- if we let this be, we let our friend get dragged down to hell. If we let this be, how many others suffer the same fate? It isn’t too late, but it could be if we don’t act!”

There’s none of the stunned silence anymore-- only roaring. Like forest fire tearing through with no hope of stopping, of even slowing. Brinker has to roar louder for his murderous sermon to be heard.

“And if we do nothing--”

A voice tears through the schoolboys, vicious, “We’re no better than him!”

Gene’s eye catches on his lover just in time to watch a bible connect with his stomach, and to watch him crumple to the floor holding it. At the same time, Icarus’s wings melt. They melt and they freeze at once and the ice splits and to his dismay, it isn’t Gene falling through.

It’s his Phineas.

 

The break had been hell without Phineas. Hell incarnate. The chill outside Gene’s window could never compare to the freezing cold in his chest, the absence of his lover in his arms. It was the first time Gene started thinking, really thinking about making love to him.

Every time he closed his eyes he could see that dazzling green, those constellations of freckles, bouncing curls and sweat dripping from his brow, that reckless smile. Phineas.

Touching himself wasn’t the same as Phineas’s hands. Curling up with a pillow and closing his eyes wasn’t the same as soft warmth pressed snugly to his chest.

Gene knew he loved him, then. He knew that no matter what happened, Phineas would be his everything. With all of his heart and with every piece of his soul, he loved Phineas. That he might as well be an extension of him, a lost piece of his own soul found.

If Phineas ever died, Gene wouldn’t follow far after. How can you live without the best pieces of yourself?

 

“Run!” The word claws itself from his throat, tears its way out before Gene can hear it himself, before he can process. Bright green, flickered with pain, flickered with fear. Ice, melting gold and secret kisses and the dying of the light.

“Finny, run!”

Phineas understands that time. The fastest boy in the world as he darts from the room, a striking resemblance to Achilles as he runs. It’s a blur of everyone’s movement as well as Gene’s own as he forces himself to stand and look, panic he’s positive is evident on his face. Someone catches his wrist, Phineas’s, tugs him back in a movement that’s sharp enough to make the boy fall to his knees. Phineas. He’s fast, he’s strong for his size, but he’s small. He can outwit and he can outrun, but he can’t overpower.

The boys circle him, surrounding him, and Gene feels an unimaginable panic in his bones, down to his core. Still. He’s fast. He’s back on his feet and tearing to the door faster than anything. It isn’t like Phineas. Tearing isn’t the right word to describe what Phineas does. He’s one with the water, a part of it as he becomes the water itself, the unfathomably fast current as he moves. Always so calm and graceful and carefree.

But not this time. Tearing is exactly the right word here. Haphazard and desperate-- he’s scared. Phineas, scared. It’s the most terrible thing Gene’s ever seen.

The boys-- the  _ mob-- _ tears away too, out of the church, chasing after him. That roaring of their crowd is still red hot, white hot, drenched in hate and murder and sin.

Gene was never quite as fast as Phineas, not even as fast as the others. But there is one thing he is, and it is smart. There is one thing he knows, and it is Phineas down to his soul, in his entirety. And when he manages come forward on shaking legs, they know where to go immediately.

The winter air bites at his face, but the wind that had been blowing earlier is gone now. The air is still, silent. As if it knows that something very real and something very wrong is happening, as if its manners implore it to be still. He can hear shouting in the distance, a sort of victoriousness rises in him-- they’ve gone the wrong way.

If Gene knows his Phineas, the path he brings himself down will lead Gene to him. It is like second nature, coming down this path, eyes flickering among these trees. He can nearly feel Phineas beside him, the warmth of his hand cancelling out the sting of the wintery night air. The endless nights spent down this path towards the river, the times they’d slipped from it and found each other in the treeline.

It is anxiously that Gene looks around him, tries to find him. He doesn’t dare call for him, doesn’t dare alert the boys of his location.

Phineas stands in a small clearing, and the sight of him standing there touches Gene’s eye in a natural, soft way. His steps come to a decided stop on the path, looking out at the boy from behind the treeline.

His head is tilted down, his shoulders still. He is on the edge of a hill leading down to the river, their river. There is a kind of steady silence Gene has never known, that he hopes to never know again, as long as he lives. Those strawberry blond curls are still, the wind in its standstill refusing to breathe any life into him as he stands.

He is quiet, his eyes on the river. Gene watches as he holds his breath.

He doesn’t approach. He doesn’t call for him. He watches. He is as quiet as everything else in this scene.

Gene previously assumed that nothing could be worse than that biting silence. And he quickly learned that he was wrong.

When movement finally does come to those pretty curls, it is because Phineas turns his head towards the sound of a branch snapping. It did not come from where Gene stood watching. It was directly behind Phineas, in the trees behind him.

He hasn’t finished turning his head toward the sound before a rock flies from the treeline and connects with a sort of cruel finality against the boy’s eyebrow. That sound is worse, worse than the frostbitten silence, the sound of the jagged earth colliding with flesh, cracking bone, compelling blood.

Phineas falls. His heels come off the ground as he falls, down the hill, into the iced over river. The river, which shatters on impact. The ice is like broken glass as it is thrown onto the riverbank.

Brinker rushes from the treeline, his glasses broken in half on his nose, his arm held like the arm of a man who just threw the most gravitational thing in his lifetime. And that is the last thing Gene can see before his vision goes black.

 

“Did you hit Gene, too?”

“What? Of course I didn’t hit him, there wasn’t any reason to h--”

“Then why is he all blacked out, Brinker?”

“I don’t know, maybe he was in shock. He did watch.”

“You didn’t have to kill him, Brinker. You didn’t--”

“Sh! He’s awake.”

Suddenly both pairs of eyes are on Gene as he sits up in his bed. Two boys, his friends. Leper, Brinker. They look at him as if they are surprised he is awake, as if they thought he’d lie there forever. Maybe he will.

“Gene,” Brinker says it, standing and crossing over to the edge of his bed, arms folded over his chest awkwardly. Leper doesn’t move, staying where he is, his eyes casting decidedly to the floor.

The silence stays there for a moment.

“Why is it so damn cold?” Gene finally mumbles, absent, eyes shifting to the open window. Brinker laughs, abruptly, unnaturally. They are both unsure how to act. It’s exhausting.

“We, uh,” Leper finally stands, crossing to the window and closing it, the bolt clicking with finality as it shuts, “We thought it might wake you up, you know, being cold.”

“Didn’t want you to sleep too long.”

Gene’s gaze slides back to Brinker’s, and it stays there. The boy holds the look for  moment, but for just a moment-- he turns his head back down.

“Forrester, listen. I’m sorry it turned out like it did. But you-- you have to understand, I can’t apologize for doing the right thing. I did the right thing.”

Gene can’t find the words to tell him how wrong he is. He can’t find the heart to speak with any conviction. A peice of him is missing. He doesn’t know where to put his hands. He doesn’t know how to form his words.

Brinker tilts his head back up towards Gene, then. There is a certain purity in his eyes, a certain sureness of self. A particular confidence. Brinker believes truly and deeply in everything he is saying. Gene has never seen anything more horrible.

“I won’t tell anyone, Gene.”

“What?”

“About Finny. About all of it. I won’t tell anyone, and neither will anyone else. We said it was an accident. We said he fell.”

Gene stares at him. Just stares, simple and blank in the way one does when they are trying to process what they are hearing while they are missing a piece of their soul. Brinker Hadley swallows.

“It’s… I didn’t want anyone to know about him. He was my friend too. I don’t want the world to turn on him even in death. Nobody here should judge him, not now. We did what needed to be done, and now it’s done.”

“He means we’ll protect him, Gene.” Leper adds in a meek way.

The notion that neither of them have considered that they are covering up a murder they are all responsible for-- like Phineas is the one getting a fantastic deal-- almost makes Gene want to laugh.

Almost.

“Gene?”

His eyes turn to Leper. Leper, who looks so nervous, standing there holding his own sleeves.

“Yes?”

“Did you mean it when you said Finny was lying? That you loved him too?”

“Leper, you goddamn idiot, we talked about this,” Brinker spits over his shoulder, “He was saying what he had to say to save his friend. It was a lie that he thought would help. He didn’t understand what we were trying to do.”

“I understood, Hadley.”

That silence returns to the room, for a moment, a long moment, before Brinker Hadley stands straight and exits, closing the door behind him.

The snow falls soft outside the closed window. Gene remembers a boy with a smile on his face as a freckled hand reaches up and touches his cheek, and he says with his voice like music, “You’ve still got snow in your hair.”

“Yes,” he says, his gaze not breaking from the window, “I meant it.”

Leper is silent, eyes wide, his shoulders stiffening. Gene continues.

“I loved him too. Love. Present tense. This doesn’t change that. Nothing changes that. Not now, not ever.”

“What was that like?” Leper is breathless when he asks, speaking in a whisper, as if he’s afraid to talk about this, as if he’s afraid his own wings will melt. Gene can’t help the small smile it coaxes to his face. He can’t help but wonder if Leper is his own Icarus, if one day he’ll meet his own. If a pretty boy with the brightest eyes Leper Lepellier has ever seen in his life will sweep him off his feet and into the sun.

“There were a lot of things that were like a lot of things. It was terrifying. It was beautiful.  _ He _ was beautiful. I know things and I am things that never would have been if not for him.”

_ I don’t know what I’m going to do now, without him. _

Leper doesn’t respond to the unspoken sentence, of course. He smiles at the things Gene did say, his eyes brightening, just a little.

“Will you tell Brinker if I say something, Gene?”

“Of course I won’t.”

“I think that’s lovely. I just don’t see the problem with that.”

“Neither do I, Leper.”

Leper hesitates, visibly, blue eyes flickering to the window before they turn back to Gene.

“I knew where he was going to go. To the river, right? That was where you and him liked to go.”

Leper appears to be searching Gene’s face for a kind of understanding, and when he finds none he continues.

“I-- I led the boys the other way. I told them he’d gone the other way.”

This time, Leper finds the understanding.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, it didn’t do him any good. Brinker knew where he’d be, anyway. He found him, anyway.”

“Leper,” Gene says, honestly, his gaze locked to the boy’s, “Thank you.”

He’d tried to help him. He’d tried to save him, and that was the most anyone had done. Gene had tried to save him, too, and in the end his efforts didn’t do Phineas any good either.

He hopes he is right about Leper. That he and Phineas aren’t alone here at Devon, alone here on this godforsaken Earth. And he hopes that life and love go better for Leper Lepellier than it did for Gene Forrester.

Leper doesn’t leave. Gene doesn’t ask him to. They stay where they are and watch the snow fall in a silent haze.

 

Gene thought he would be messier.

When the one you love dies, especially if he is to die young, and in such a way, such a horrible despicable unfair way, and when you are left on Earth without him, it stands to reason that you are messy. You are  disaster, you can’t contain yourself, you can’t keep yourself from raining hell upon the world.

Upon life, upon men, upon anyone who is a fraction of the reason the boy you love is not in your arms. The reason that boy froze in a river shattered by stupid schoolboys who thought they knew God.

It’s the strangest thing that Gene can’t feel that disaster.

Gene can hardly feel anything, he’s discovered. It is as if his life has been stolen from him so honestly and so thoroughly that he does not have the capacity even to feel the worst of this.

It is unbearable.

Footsteps are receding down the hall as Gene opens the door to his room, the toe of his shoe connecting with a package that lies in the hall.

“What’s this?”

The words make the boys jump, which might be satisfying under different circumstances. Without this dizzy numbness, without the horrible fire of anger and terrible sadness and the feeling of nothing at all. They shoot a look towards each other, and then they cross the hall again sheepishly looking at Gene’s shoes.

“Um, a gift?”

“What?”

“It’s just sweets,” The boy tells him, “For, you know--”

The other one chimes in, “to, to make up for, you know--”

“Make up for it?” Gene repeats, the words falling from his mouth disbelieving. Their eyes widen in a way that show they understand their fault, and then their eyes turn back to the ground.

“Well, we-- we just wanted to do something.”

As Gene looks at them, he finds even now, he can feel nothing but terribly tired.

“I would rather you hadn’t done anything,” He tells them, and he knows they understand what he means, “I would rather you had done nothing at all.”

 

“Gentlemen,” The teacher begins, his back straight, hands on either side of the podium. The classroom is silent, awaiting the announcement. Nobody is in suspense. Everyone knows precisely what this is. Everyone knows the exact words that will leave their teacher’s throat.

“It is my… unfortunate duty to inform you of the untimely passing of a classmate of yours. As many of you know, over the weekend Phineas Levant was out in the woods at night, and he slipped on a rock and fell into the river. He drowned.”

Levant. It’s strange hearing Finny’s last name. Nobody ever used it, nobody ever needed to. If you said his name, either of them, if you told someone that Phineas, Finny had done something, they would know who you meant. Of course they would. Every time they would. Nobody ever used Phineas’s last name. Nobody had ever been so formal.

Death changes things like that, Gene supposes. Everything changes, Gene supposes. Nothing stays the same.

Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence.

“It was a tragedy. A terrible accident for which nobody is to blame.”

When Gene turns his head instinctively to look at Brinker Hadley, the boy’s eyes are already locked on him. Gene doesn’t falter, not slightly. He is so unbearably tired.

“There is a memorial outside to pay your respects--”

Gene thought there would be. He hasn’t seen it, he doesn’t intend on seeing it. Something about that feels cheap, feels fake, feels wrong.

“There will be a funeral service next weekend.”

That, on the other hand, Gene will certainly attend. Next weekend. Finny’s service being next weekend leaves this weekend open.

That night, when Gene slips through his window with the intention of boarding a midnight train, he takes the time to note that save for Phineas, there wouldn’t be a fraction of a sufficient rebellious spark in him.

Finny changed plenty. He changed Gene, and in changing him he made him worthwhile.

 

For the first time since he watched the river shatter, Gene feels something. As he stands on the doorstep, clutching a snow-wetted piece of paper in his gloved hands. As he stands there with snow in his messy dark hair, as he stands there staring at a red door. He is so still, he is so silent. For a moment he is certain his blood is frozen. He is unfathomably nervous.

A lock clicks, and his spine straightens more than anything. The door opens, and the face of a woman appears in the doorway.

Gene loses his breath.

She looks so much like him. Or, rather, he looked so much like her. Curly strawberry blond hair, falling around her slim shoulders. Freckles strewn across her face like stars. Those same bright eyes.

“Yes?” She asks, and her voice almost fails her. Her eyes flicker about Gene, confused, nervous. Like she may start crying at any moment, “Who are you?”

“Um--” Gene’s voice does fail him. He looks away, his fingers touching his mouth. The snow melts there, and he tries again.

“Um, ma’am, I’m-- My name is Gene Forrester, I went to school with your son. I was his roommate. I’m-- I’m supposed to be there right now, but I… I had to speak with you, if that’s alright, I--”

“Shshsh, hush, please,” She speaks so quickly, so quickly, her hand coming out to take Gene’s wrist, to pull him inside, “Come in, come in. I’m happy you’re here. I’m so… I’m so happy you’re here.”

Gene feels his face flush, and he follows the woman inside. His eyes dart around the home, instinctively, taking it all in. Finny’s home. Gene knows in his heart it was warm, once. He knows this woman once smiled, once gave off light like a ray of sun. And he knew in his heart that the light of this home died with her son.

“Can I get you anything, my love? Tea? Anything?”

“N-no. Thank you.”

“I’m so happy you’re here,” She says again as she sits in the living room and pours him a cup of tea anyway. He says a meek thank you as she hands it to him, taking it in his hands.

“It’s hot--”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You said you knew Phineas?”

She is leaning forward, visibly eager to hear about whatever Gene has come to tell her. He is quiet for a moment, and then he sits down across from her.

“He was my roommate.”

“Was he good?”

“He was wonderful, Mrs. Levant,” He says without thinking, and then says, “I-- Um, he was my best friend. I helped him with his homework, and he… he made me a better person, and I, um… he meant the world to me.”

Gene thinks he sees tears in the woman’s eyes, and he apologizes under his breath before she quickly stops him.

“Nono, please, please-- will you stay? For a little while?”

And he stays for a little while. They talk. Mrs. Levant gets to know the Phineas of Gene’s love, and Gene gets to know the Phineas of his mother’s love. She tells him stories-- when he was a little boy, the funny things he would say. He told her stories. About a boy that was faster than the river’s current when he swam in the cold, a boy that was perpetually smiling, a boy that refused to apply himself to his schoolwork.

And over this, they found themselves very close to each other.

“Mrs. Levant, I have to tell you something before I go,” Gene said, hours later. She looked at him with a smile so warm, so motherly.

“Of course, dear.”

“You may not like it very much. But you should know. I think… I think he would want you to know.”

The warmth flickers, and Gene takes a breath before he loses his nerves completely.

“I loved your son. I was in love with him. He was in love with me. We were lovers. We… he changed me, he made me better. I don’t know who I am without him, now. I don’t know how to live.”

She looks at him, and for a moment he isn’t sure she understands exactly what he said. And then she smiles.

“His father has always denied it to high heaven,” She says softly, “But… I always knew.”

“That he…”

“That he had a certain attraction to boys? My little boy never wanted anything to do with girls. He told me so, when he was young. Oh, I knew he’d find a handsome young man to enamor himself with when we sent him to an all boys school.”

Gene flushed, and he was stunned into silence. The woman laughed, a gentle sound, a soft sound, an almost-broken sound. There were tears in her eyes as she reached forward and touched his cheek, smiling, “But what a blessing you are to my little boy. To love and be loved… that’s all I could have asked for his life.”

And for the first time since he watched the river shatter, Gene Forrester cries.

 

The buttons are black, the shirt is black, the collar is black. His pants, black, secured around his hips with a belt that is black. Black shoes on the wooden floor all cast with shadows and sorrows and the silence of the room where only Gene Forrester stands buttoning his shirt and Leper Lepellier stands watching his shoes.

Neither speaks. Leper doesn’t dare, and Gene doesn’t care to.

His hair isn’t quite black. Dark brown, very dark. Phineas told him once that he liked it that way, he thinks. His eyes are dark too, but they aren’t quite black either. Nothing here is black enough. Nothing here holds enough darkness to convey this. Nothing can convey this-- not today, not in this room, not any day or in any room there will ever be for the rest of time. Nothing.

That is what Gene is sure of as the door clicks open and squeaks in a timid way on it’s old hinges. Nothing will ever come close.

“Why are you here?” Gene says the sentence before he knows his voice still works. He says it before he even turns his dark eyes up to meet the surprised gaze of his classmate. Brinker’s glasses are gone, his hair slicked back and his clothes in a neat and respectful way that Brinker’s belongings are almost never in. He always has a slight mess to him, a small note of disarray. Not today. Presumably, out of respect for the boy whose funeral service he will be attending.

Gene finds it no less than revolting.

“I was just seeing if you two were r--”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

Brinker blinks a few times as Gene turns to look at him. He wishes he could look scary, intimidating, threatening. But he knows he just looks tired. He knows that everyone who meets his gaze now can only see shattering ice without the sound, all muted against the snow.

“Okay… what do you mean?”

“I meant to ask you on the train, but I honestly couldn’t stand the thought of hearing your fucking voice, so I didn’t,” the way Leper jumps at the obscenity is rewarding, “Why are you here? Why did you come? Why didn’t you stay at Devon?”

Brinker’s look softens, and Gene hates it. It makes his blood boil under his fragile skin.

“Gene…” Brinker’s voice is gentle, calm, as if he is taming an animal, as if Gene is ignorant, as if Brinker Hadley has every fact there is and Gene is a child. Gene’s knuckles turn white against the edge of the desk he leans on.

“Gene, he was my friend. I cared about him. I still do. I did the right thing, and I can’t judge him anymore. It’s not my place. It isn’t in my hands.”

“I wish I could kill you,” Gene’s voice is even softer than Brinker’s, it holds no heat, breaking in the middle of words, “I mean it. I’d kill you right now if I could make it look like an accident. Like you slipped and fell into the river and it was your fault and you weren’t murdered.”

Brinker visibly tenses, but he quickly forces a semblance of composure into his shoulders. His eyes stay on Gene, and he speaks again.

“Forrester, I’m sorry that you don’t understand. I am.”

“I understand.”

“No, Gene, I don’t think you do.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Gene is so, so tired, “And I think you’re the saddest person alive.”

“Gene--”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ll say it every goddamn day until the sun swallows the earth, Phineas Levant was and is the love of my life.”

“Stop it--”

“I, Gene Forrester, engaged in a homosexual love affair with Phineas Levant completely and entirely of my own free will.”

“Forrester--”

“It was not evil, and it was not wrong. I loved him, I love him. He loved me. He is the only thing that has ever made me worthwhile. I wasn’t a semblance of a good person until him. He made everything he touched beautiful and I will never have that again. That’s your fault.”

Brinker opens his mouth to object again, but Gene prevents it, stepping forward, coming closer to him like ice shattering against a riverbank, and Brinker takes several steps back, his back pressed to the wall behind him.

“You can think I’m being influenced in ungodly ways by an ungodly boy because I don’t understand if that helps you sleep. I don’t know, maybe you’ve just decided you don’t have double homicide quite in you. Here’s what I know. I love a boy that you killed, because you thought he was going to hell. I knew my Phineas, and I can tell you right here without a shadow of a doubt and with the most certainty I have ever had about anything that Phineas, my Phineas, is not going to hell. No God in his right mind would send that natural wonder to hell. I can promise you that.”

Both of Brinker Hadley’s boney hands push Gene away by his shoulders, send the small of his back connecting with the table behind him. Gene watches him leave the room in a rush, and he is quiet. Leper stands staring at him, and Gene is quiet.

 

The church is quiet, dark, the sun down behind him. The fire is gone. Moments before the room had been in flames, lit by the setting sun, life and gold dancing in the glass. But now that light is gone, and what is left is the dark, the cold, the quiet. Soft like snow, muted. The only sound is his shoes as they click on the wooden floors. 

The shadows of the pews dance, framed by the soft moonlight. The church is empty. There is nothing left but him and the beautiful wooden box, surrounded by flowers and candles, a few steps ahead. His feet follow the stairs. He can't tell if his heart is pounding away restlessly in his chest or if it has stopped completely. He moves as if he is underwater, he breathes as though he is surprised he still can.

His feet fall on the same level that the box is on. There is the most heavy silence. The candles around the box are out. There is nothing left but them and the dark.

Dark hair tousles over his eyes as he turns his head. The doors to the church remain closed, and he remains alone. A thought touches his head, lightly, saying how strange, how cruel it may be to hold the boy in a church, in his death. Is Gene Forrester's love to spend the rest of his eternity, his peaceful rest surrounded by a notion of a God who hates him?

Although, of course, it isn't God who hates him. He knows this as his head turns back, as dark eyes touch the lilies surrounding the polished wood, the idle candles still dripping wax from the memory of fire. It isn't God who hates him, who hates them, who hates a love that is the purest and most beautiful thing Gene has ever known. That hate resides in people. And it is all Gene can do to hope that one day people will be different.

Another step forward brings him closer, and allows his eyes to finally fall on him. He was ablaze over the summer, and he was softened in the winter, and now he is akin to the candles that have been blown out surrounding this church. The sun missing from his skin, left with nothing but moonlight. His blond hair is kept neat, the curls brushed away and back from his face. Those freckles, those constellations kissing his pale skin, are muted, are nearly gone, as if someone ran an eraser along him. He is so pale.

He has been washed away by the river, and now this ghost of him lays still in a box. Gene can't find his eyes off of him.

Gene takes one of the lilies off of the altar, and he hears the doors to the church opening behind him. He is not afraid as he tucks the flower into the pretty ghost's folded hands, as he presses a feather light kiss to his cold forehead.

"I love you," He whispers.

He stands, then, and he turns to see who stands in the doorway. 

Mrs. Levant stands there silently side by side with her husband, and the look on his face is one Gene cannot help but attribute to Brinker Hadley the night he killed a pretty ghost. All three of them are quiet, and Gene's feet are steady as the follow the steps down to the aisle, as he crosses over to the pair.

His gaze meets the man's. It stays there, even as he stops in front of him. He doesn't look like Phineas.

He considers what to say, and then decides that nothing could contain everything he means to tell him. Not here. Not now. And so, he is silent as he passes by the pair, as he descends the marble steps into the cold night air.

 

The other half of the room hasn’t been touched since that night.

The air hangs still and silent, frozen in time, the bed still unmade, his clothes still strewn across the floor, his papers and his books.

The two usually slept in Gene’s bed, anyway. The bedsheets still smell like him, and Gene still finds himself waking up, the light of the morning on his brow, reaching for someone that isn’t there, that will never be there again. Sometimes he sees him silhouetted in the dark, feels a kiss on his cheek, but it is gone and faded by the time he turns his head.

For the first time since the last time that boy was alive in this room, the other half is touched by humanity. The first shirt Gene picks up gingerly to put away feels wrong, freezes his blood in his veins. And as he continues, as he picks up the clutter and cleans it away, it feels like he is tasting his lover once more, like he is getting one last interaction with him, with the ghost he left behind.

It isn’t much, but it is something.

Gene, possibly, would never have done this if he hadn’t been told he must. The school board decided together that it was his responsibility to clean the room of Phineas’s things, to prepare it in case another boy were to move in. That particular thought makes Gene sick, but there isn’t anything to be done. Nothing can be changed.

Besides, it was a good thing to do. Not to say goodbye, not to move on. But just to feel his presence again. To touch the things graced by him, to take the phantoms from this room and offer them to the great beyond. 

His own things were included in this sentiment, things folded up in a basket, like ghosts woven together. Phineas's pink shirt, folded with the collar visible. His french homework with his handwriting in scribbles across the pages, all horribly incorrect. Gene's own homework, the same assignments. Comparing them to each other, a small fondness, remembering how homework was the only thing he ever had on Finny. Academics was the only thing he did better, and those didn't matter. Not really.

He's learned. He's known things, and all of them are worlds more important than math homework. He folds the math homework in, too.

He folds a pillowcase in, the same one he'd gotten so fondly used to watching strawberry blond tousle awake on, slowly, quietly. Precious.

He folds in letters from Phineas's mother. One to Finny, during the summer. And one to Gene, from the other day. Both overflowing with motherly kindness. Gene saw no use in including a letter from his own mother.

There are leaves under Finny's bed, from the tree, their tree. He folds those in as well, and he can smell his lover's skin framed against the sunset.

These and other things, tucked away into a basket, pretty, like a memorial all on it's own.

The room is empty, barren when he leaves with the basket and closes the door behind him. As if everyone who has ever lived in it is dead and gone and passed away, as if they have been for many years, as if they will never return in all the years God's earth endures.

 

The winter air bites at his face, at his nose, whipping bitterly cold, even tearing the snow from his hair.

He doesn't like the winter, he never has. Riding down this path is different than it was in the summer. In the summer the sun shone bright like a beacon, filtering rays of warmth into his hair, into his veins, making a home under his skin. Illuminating Phineas like an angel.

And today, too early for the sun to be risen on the horizon, there is nothing left under his skin but the cold. 

He rides, the freezing air tearing at him endlessly, until finally the wheels of his bike slow and stop, and his feet hit the ground. His attention turns to the basket under his arm, ensuring for the ten thousandth time that nothing was torn from it in the wind, and for the ten thousandth time, nothing was. He allows his gaze, then, to turn to the sea.

There is a silhouette, for just a moment, against the sand, sleeping silently in the dark. The sky is gray, the sun nowhere on the horizon, the beach a garden of shadows and ghosts. He comes forward, dark eyes staying on the silhouette, or the ghost thereof, of the fragment of a memory.

There is a pretty boy, the prettiest boy anyone has ever had the blessing to see, with nothing on him but shorts, sleeping peacefully in the sand. His eyes are closed, the wind blowing his curls so gently astray in the wind. He's only sleeping, and at any moment Gene could reach out, gentle hand, and wake him.

He doesn't, though.

He sleeps. Gene sits beside him and watches, waiting for the best part.

Ten minutes later, maybe, the sun shows itself against the sea. It awakens the sky, turns the bleak and barren gray into blue and pink, purple. It is vibrant, it is beautiful, and he remembers how Phineas looked that morning. Like Lazarus breathed back to life from sleep. The night leaving him, the colors painting him.

He turned his head back, away from the sea, towards the memory. But he is gone. No life is returned to him, and there is nothing left but Gene, and the sea, and the sun, and the cold.

And the basket.

The cold of the sea sends ice through his veins when he steps into the frothy waves, and it remains as he places the basket in the water. He steps  back, salt in his skin, his breath visible in the winter air, his clothes drenched in the sea. Dark eyes watch the morning sky turn slowly gray again, the bleak gray of morning, and the ocean swallows the basket, silently, gently.

And that is all.

 

He returns to Devon during breakfast, walking the path lined with footsteps and snow. The wind whispers his name and he tilts his head towards it, his eyes falling on another ghost, another memory fragmented, a boy with snow in his blond hair, a bright smile, his eyes on someone beside him. His shirt is pink, and his smile falls. He is gone. Gene turns his head back to the doors as they open.

Nobody notices him enter, really, nobody cares. There is nothing special about his entry, and if he was quiet before the river, he is dead silent now. A few eyes turn up to him, his hair wet with snow and his clothes wet with sea, and they don't linger.

One gaze does linger, and Gene's own gaze is locked on him as he moves across the room, one thing on his mind, one thing only.

Brinker Hadley looks up as Gene is a few feet from him, and his eyes brighten with recognition. He smiles a spindly, fake, nervous smile, and he rises to his feet. Gene doesn't stop, doesn't slow. His name has scarcely started to form in Brinker's mouth before Gene's fist connects with it, sending him sprawling back onto the floor. That draws attention, surprised shouts going up around the pair.

Gene leaves a trail of melted snow as he steps onto a chair, over the table, across to where Brinker is confused with a bloody lip on the ground.

Gene's never fought anyone before. The rage is white hot, and there wasn't a moment where it suddenly flooded him, where he knew he had to let it out. It's there, it was always there. How could it not have been?

"Forrest--"

He's cut off by his own groan as Gene's boot connects with his ribs.

Gene Forrester, for the first time since the river, for the first time in his life, is made of rage. He is made of ghosts and anger and violence and he cannot be stopped. He wants to make Brinker Hadley suffer.

Gene Forrester is anger, incarnate, and nothing can appease him but blood.

Gene grabs him by his collar and pulls him up, throws him against the table, sends his fist into his face again before his spine has even connected with the wood. And again, and again. Over and over. He doesn't stop, and he can taste blood, and there is blood on his hands and on his arms and on his shirt.

Boys are shouting, some of them excited to see a fight, some of them pleased to simply watch blood be drawn. And some of them are frightened, some of them are calling for him to stop. He won't.

His knuckles are scraped, cut, raw, bleeding by the time he's forcibly pulled from Brinker Hadley, his glasses broken on the ground, his face and his clothes bloodied, still.

He isn't dead, Gene isn't that strong. But for just a moment, he wishes he was. Just for a moment. Dark eyes turn up to the teacher that has pulled him away, and he is not sorry. Hours later he sits in the headmaster's office, being lectured, being whipped, and he is not sorry.

When he showers by himself the water runs red. 

 

That night the room is empty when he gets dressed, remarkably empty. There is nothing, there is no one. No ghosts, no memories, no blood. Nothing. It is late, and he should be sleeping like the others. He isn't, and he doesn't plan to. His dark eyes stay on the room, lingering, like he is trying to memorize it. And then the door clicks shut, and he turns to the hallway.

There is a bright smile on his face, and he startles when Gene turns around, facing him. He's shorter than Gene is, smaller. His hair is not golden, or curly. His hair is so red, messy, raked back from his forehead, tucked behind his ears. He wears the uniform, but it is unruly in a small way.

He doesn't have any freckles, his skin light and pale and soft and clear. His eyes are so black. He laughs, a pretty sound, a painfully familiar sound, and those dark eyes turn up to him.

"Jesus, you scared me," he says, and his voice is scratchy in a soft way, is not elegant, is not smooth. Gene swallows.

"I'm... sorry," He says, lamely.

The boy smiles up at him, strands of red across his face.  Gene feels flushed, out of place, his shoulders stiff and all of him still.

"Um... are you new?" Gene supplies, and his eyes light up as he nods, that smile finding itself again.

"Charlie!"

"Gene," he shifts slightly, his shoulders falling a fraction, "Do you know where your room is?"

He holds up a peice of paper, a letter, which Gene takes from him gently. Dark eyes scan the words, and then he hands it back to the boy, Charlie.

"You're in the other dorms. You're with Leper Lepellier."

"Leper Lepellier?" He repeats, his nose scrunching but not in distaste, rather amusement, his head tilting. Gene obliges him a smile.

"It's a nickname. You'll like him, he's nice. He's really nice."

Charlie nods, again, and he is so astoundingly like Phineas. The nature of that smile, the glint in his dark eyes. His head turns back up to Gene, and he holds the gaze with an effort.

"Say, could you show me? It's a bit of a maze."

"Sorry, I can't. I have to be somewhere."

Charlie's brows knit together, red spilling as he tilts his head, "In the middle of the night?"

"Don't worry, I'm sure he's awake. He won't be hard to find. I'm sure they've told him you're coming."

"I suppose," Charlie hums, his eyes turning back to the paper curiously for a moment. Those dark eyes stay there for a moment, and then they turn back up, and he smiles.

"Well... I'll see you around?"

Gene doesn't affirm that, simply smiles. Charlie returns it, and he disappears down the hall. Gene watches him go, and then leaves the opposite way.

As his skin touches the cold night air, he imagines himself as Icarus in the ocean.

 

There isn’t much wind, but it’s there. Gentle, light, freezing cold. The evening isn’t silent, the light wind showing itself in the rustling of the leaves all around Gene from where he stands on a limb, the limb of the tree. Their tree. Snow falls from the leaves, dripping onto the melting bank below. The river has a thin layer of ice covering it below, no sign of where it shattered weeks ago.

The wind catches in Gene’s dark hair, but if it falls into his eyes he doesn't notice or care.

The moon cast white light down onto the ice, illuminating what was left of the snow, washing his hand in it as it held onto the branch, lightly. He'd always been afraid jumping from this tree. This, the only time he should reasonably be afraid, he wasn't.

Amidst the midnight, a shadow, a ghost, a memory. Flashes of life, of green, a bright smile, the prettiest sound as he laughs. He isn't afraid.

His pockets are filled with stones as he steps forward, dark eyes on the river.

His wings are long melted, and here he is without them. The thinning ice glistens in the moonlight, and then he jumps.

His feet come away from the branch, and then he is falling. He falls until the ice shatters against his back and the cold surrounds him. It is a shock, and the moonlight gives way to darkness. The world grows steadily darker, and then turns black.

The ice surrounds him, and then becomes him. It takes the place of his soul in his body, and then he is left without it.

In the dark there is a light. A light whose fingertips brush Gene's shoulders, illumination. He comes closer. His lover takes his hand and keeps it as he pulls himself to Gene, and his hair brushes Gene’s cheek as he’s close, as his hand comes up to rest on Gene’s face, feather-soft and gentle.

There is nothing left but them and the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all. thank you all so much.  
> i doubt this is going to be the last i write of these two-- i've had this story planned in it's entirety planned out from before i wrote the first sentence, and you can't imagine how good having it all finished feels.  
> still, i've been thinking about writing less tragic things for these two. let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/


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